i 



i' ; 



THE 



PEOGEESS OF SLAVEEY 



IN THE 



UNITED STATES, 



BY GEORGE M. WESTON. 



WASHINGTON, D. 0. 
PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR. 

1857. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by 

GEORGE M. WESTON, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Columbia. 



BUELL k BLANCHARD, 

PRINTERS AND ST E RE T YPE RS , 

WASHINGTON, D. C. 



PREFACE 



The design of this volume, as indicated by its title, is to describe 
the past progress of slavery in the United States, and to consider the 
circumstances which will probably control its movement hereafter 
The economy, morals, and effects of slavery, are discussed only inci- 
dentally, and so far as such discussion was unavoidable : it having 
been the main purpose of the author to deal with the progress of 
slavery as a matter of fact, accomplished in the past, and to be dis- 
cerned in the future by the aid of such lights as experience and 
reason may afford. ♦ 

In the discussion in this volume of the increase of slaves between 
1840 and 1850, the census of 1850 is assumed to be correct. If it 
did not considerably exaggerate the number of slaves, the increase 
since 1850 must have been small, and especially if the census of 
Georgia and Alabama in 1855 is to be relied upon. The number of 
slaves given by this comparison is as follows : 



1S50. 1855. 



^fforgia 381,682 389,237 

Alabama 342,844 374,784 

It is not possible that the increase in Georgia, during this period, 
was really less than in Virginia and Kentucky. 

The augmentation of the number of slaves in many of the States 
may be calculated from year to year, from the annual enumerations 
of certain descriptions of slaves for the purposes of taxation. On the 
oasis ot comparisons of this kind, with even large allowances for 
deficiencies in the census of 1855 in Georgia and Alabama, the pre- 
diction may be ventured, that the census of 1860, if honestly taken, 

} "ST ei a Veiy low rate of in crease of slaves between 1850 
ana i860, or a serious exaggeration of their number in 1850. 

in so much of this work as relates to the laws of population, it has 
not been the ambition of the author to develop any new theory. The 
admirable sagacity of Dr. Franklin exhausted that subject more than 
a century ago. The ideas of his little tract upon population have 
been since expanded into volumes, but no substantial addition has 



PREFACE. 



b een W-ae to *»£*££*£$$*£ ot \K 

work nothing is attempted bej ona tms 



well-establisbeapnuoxpx^^^. re in themselves uu. 

sion of the negro r ^ ce 5 ^Xe'anse the vast interests depending 
Whkh !™ ^baveTeen abl ^command the aid of ingenious soph- 
T^cS* Voffr^^to .ho. that the past 



multiplication of slaves m .the Un it « ™«~, fl ^ of hat 

an unavoidable calamity, was ^he toreseen ^ the 

territorial expansion of slavery which to ^ multip lication of the 
ests of those who breed slaves ! that ; ^ ^ b fixi its external 
^^^t^tXr^ beneficial, rather than 

tions, which may be weighed m deciding , ontrolle d for the 

of the emigration from .the fee* ^' ^ J onteS t in Kansas has 

Lss of which the reader mus pd e , imme diatey to Mis- 

climates should be directed to the too >a ^ tQ the ^ ndian 

souri and Kansas but ^^MeSco, and to Northern Texas; 
territory behind Arkan as , to_New ^ 1 , g()uthwestern frontl er 

and that, when slavery » ««^*£ utterly useless, for any purpose 
it will be time enough and until "*n J Kentucky. . 

of extinguishing it, to invade m , * ^ ^.^ {] 

That peculiar eombmationof— ^ of Arkansas which 

production of cotton, is found m ar P Territory beyond 

are now entirely unoccupied, and m t in Xortheru 

. G The overwhelming prepon^eol^^ ^.^ ^ 

Texas, in Arkansas except imn ^£^ and hl Kansas , renders it 

^^ h *v?i!r£^i admirabie and exteus t i r. 

easy to exclude the negio slave torn enter upon tbe 

cotton region. Free labor ^^^ m ^ e profits of which have 
C ciltivation of a great staple o ^ ^'production of : cotton, now 
been so long monopolized bj slavery 1 Uurist8 of the United 

t^r^^^*^ * w efficient and • 

hinds.' THE AUTHOR. 

Washington, D. C, August, 1857. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

Page. 

Comparative statements of the advance of the free and slave 
States in population. Gain of the free States steady, but not 
rapid. Comparative statements of the advance of the free and 
slave States in area. Causes of the superior success and 
aptitude of the slave States in acquiring territory. Slavery 
as yet firmly maintained in the northern tier of slave States. 
The political power of the slave States still formidable 1 

CHAPTER II. 

Considerations rendering it probable that slavery will cease to 
exist in Missouri. Connection between slavery and the prices 
of land. Missouri at present more inviting to the free emi- 
grant than Virginia. Commanding position of Missouri 10 

CHAPTER III. 

Considerations rendering it probable that the emigration from 
the free States, hitherto moving westward, may hereafter tend 
southward, to Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky. Accumu- 
lated power of the population of the free States. No apology 
for slavery in the northern slave States. The right of emigra- 
tion between the States 2o 

CHAPTER IV. 

Slave society stationary. Impossibility of improvement .of the 
non-slaveholding whites. Tendency of slavery to expel the 
white race. Example of South Carolina. Slavery predomi- 
nant in some portions of Virginia, and freedom in others. 
Non-slaveholding whites in slave countries have no capacity 
to become artisans and build up towns. Slaveholders will 

39 
never give up slavery 



Vi CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER V. 

Page. 
Comparative growth of Northern and Southern Maryland. Te- 
nacity of slavery in the southern counties. Advantageous 
position of Maryland. Descriptions of Eastern and Western 
Shores. Slaveholders take the best soils. Baltimore not 
likely to move actively for the abolition of slavery. The 
growth of the city of Washington favorable to the removal of 
slavery from the southern counties of Maryland 54 

CHAPTER VI. 

Increase of slaves in the several decades since 1810. Number of 
slaves in Texas in 1840. Increase of slaves less rapid in the 
extreme South. Number of slaves enlarges with the area 
over which they are spread. Why the number of slaves has 
gained by natural increase in the United States, and not else- 
where in America 72 

CHAPTER VII. 

The Ordinance of 1787 firmly maintained by subsequent Con- 
gresses. Slavery in Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mis- 
sissippi, never within the control of Congress. Slavery ob- 
tained a footing in Missouri and Arkansas contrary to the 
intention of Congress. The Missouri Compromise was in fact 
no compromise, but a clear victory of the slaveholders 91 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Emigration does not diminish population. Opinions of Dr. Mal- 
thus, Dr. Franklin, and the Earl of Selkirk. Illustrations. 
Nearly a million slaves of Virginia stock existing out of Vir- 
ginia in 1850, who would not have existed anywhere but for 
the domestic slave trade. Free negroes increase slowly, if at 
all. The Northern States cannot be invaded by negroes 10G 

CHAPTER IX. 

The argument for slavery, as being necessary for the multiplica- 
tion of negroes. Carrying slaves into new regions not favor- 
able to their personal comfort, but the contrary. Cruelties of 
the domestic slave trade 128 



CONTENTS. Vll 

CHAPTER X. 

Page. 

The introduction of slaves into the States of the extreme South, 
to some extent legislated against by them, and always op- 
posed by many of their citizens. Slave trading disreputable 
at the South. The suppression of the domestic slave trade 
would find supporters in all the Southern States. Inter- 
colonial slave trade prohibited by Great Britain in 1824.... 141 

CHAPTER XL 

America settled during the first three centuries chiefly by negroes. 
European immigration inconsiderable until recently. The 
probability of the further territorial expansion of slavery in 
the United States considered. The high price of slaves an 
impediment to this expansion. Within its present limits, 
slavery will not be crowded for a long time 153 

CHAPTER XII. 

Slavery will be maintained, so long as it is profitable. The state- 
ment that abolition commenced in 1835, and has retarded 
emancipation, shown to be untrue. Change in Southern views 
attributable to increased profits of slavery. Opinions of Gov- 
ernor Hammond. The discussion of slavery necessary, until 
the fate of the Territories is decided I? 5 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Review of Debates in Virginia in 1832. Abolition not seriously 
proposed. The alarm which then existed, in reference to 
outlets for slaves, since removed. Eastern Virginia opposed 
to any action. Views of Hon. C. J. Faulkner and others as 
to slavery. Emancipation in Virginia will be long postponed, 
unless the domestic slave trade is prohibited 192 

CHAPTER XIV. 

The extension of slavery profitable to the slave-breeding States, 
but injurious to the other Southern States. The acquisition 
of Cuba injurious to all the Southern States. Political power 
the sole object of extending slavery. The agitation of slavery 
with a view to party ascendency. The South has not gained 

206 

by agitation 



Vlll CONTEXTS. 

CHAPTER XV. 

Different views of the manner in which slavery may be extin- 
guished. Slave labor immediately cheap, under certain cir- 
cumstances, but ruinous as a system. The Southern States 
have grown poorer by it. Mr. Tarver*s description of the 
results of cotton-growing. Free labor will encroach upon 
slavery, because really more efficient and profitable 220 

CHAPTER XVI. 

The decline of slavery will not be the decline of the South, but 
will benefit the South. The evils apprehended at the South, 
from the shutting up of slavery, are imaginary. Slaves will 
not multiply beyond the demand for them, and the fall in 
their price will be insensible. The slave-breeding States 
alone interested in the extension of slavery. The question 
of race connected with the question of slave** 235 

CHAPTER XVII. 

The Union of the States is only endangered by tha, discontent of 
the slave States, which results from the impoverishing effects 
of slavery. Slavery itself, and not the agitation of it, origi- 
nates the feeling of disunion. Xullification first aimed against 
tariffs. The mischief will be abated, as the area of slavery 
is diminished. Political quietude the ordinary result of 
slavery J 47 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

The population of Cuba. Actual number of slaves ; misrepresent- 
ations corrected. Tendency of slavery in Cuba to disappear 
by increase of whites, the mortality of slaves, and emancipa- 
tion under Spanish laws. Classification of agricultural pur- 
suits. Character and increase of the Monteros. or yeomanry. 
Example of Porto Rico. Climate of Cuba. Salubrity. Adapt- 
ation to white labor. Possible changes in the methods of 
sugar culture. Resources and desirability of the island. If 
annexed to the Union, the free laborers of the United States 
will assert their right to it 258 

APPENDIX 295 



PROGRESS OF SLAVERY. 



CHAPTER I. 

Comparative statements of the advance of the free and slave States in 
population. Gain of the free States steady, but not rapid. Com- 
parative statements of the advance of the free and slave States in 
area. Causes of the superior success and aptitude of the slave 
States in acquiring territory. Slavery as yet firmly maintained in 
the northern tier of slave States. The political power of the slave 
States still formidable. 

In 1790, the inhabited portion of the territory of 
the United States was divided as follows, between 
the free and slave States : 



Free States. 


Area. 


Slave States. 


Area. 


Connecticut - 


- 4,674 


Delaware - - 


2,120 


Maine - - - 


- 31,766 


Georgia - - - 


58,000 


Massachusetts 


- 7,800 


Kentucky - - 


37,680 


New Hampshire 


- 9,280 


Maryland - - 


11,124 


New York 


- 47,000 


North Carolina 


50,704 


New Jersey - 


- 8,320 


South Carolina 


29,385 


Pennsylvania - 


- 46,000 


Tennessee - - 


45,600 


Rhode Island - 


- 1,306 


Virginia - - - 


61,352 


Vermont - - 


- 10,212 

166,358 








295,965 



In some of the States designated as free in this 
classification, a little remnant of slavery still lingered 



2 

In 1790, but was condemned by public opinion, 
formed no considerable part of their industrial in- 
terests, and soon ceased to have even a nominal 
existence. 

It is probable, that at the commencement, and 
even at the close, of the Revolutionary War, the area 
occupied by the slaveholding portion of the United 
States did not much exceed that occupied by the 
non-slaveholding portion. The slaveholding popu- 
lation extended itself to Kentucky and Tennessee 
subsequently to the Declaration of American Inde- 
pendence, and at that epoch the greater portion of 
Georgia was uninhabited. 

In 1790, the population of the free States was as 
follows : 

Whites 1,900,976 

Free blacks 27,112 

Slaves 40,364 

Their total population was therefore 1,968,452, or 
eleven persons and eight-tenths to each square mile. 
In 1790, the population of the slave States was as 
follows : 

Whites 1,271,488 

Free blacks 32,354 

Slaves 657,533 

Their total population was therefore 1,961,375, 
or six persons and six-tenths to each square mile. 

In 1850, the total population of the free States had 
increased to 13,526,302, divided as follows: 

Whites 13,330,650 

Free blacks 195,416 

Slaves 236 



3 

In 1850, the total population of the slave States 
had increased to 9,651,500, divided as follows: 

"Whites 6,222,418 

Free blacks- ----- 228,728 

Slaves 3,200,364 

The following table will show the per centage of 



increase at each 


census 


after 1790, of the different 


classes of population, and of the 


aggregate population 


in the free and slave States : 










Free 


States. 








1800. 


1810. 


1820. 


1830. 


1S40. 


1850. 


Whites 36.85 


40.43 
27.19 


37.70 
15.43 


36.67 
15.65 


39.10 
21.80 


39.42 


Blacks 23.01 


14.28 


Aggregate 36.38 


40.02 


37.14 


36.13 


38.73 


39.03 




Slave S^-js. 








1800. 


1810. 


1820. 


1830. 


1840. 


1850. 


Whites 33.94 


29.70 


28.20 


29.35 


26.54 


34.26 


Free blacks... 89.27 


76.79 


24.92 


34.62 


18.40 


10.49 


Slaves 30.09 


35.67 


. 30.57 


32.12 


23.98 


28.97 


Total blacks.. 33.11 


38.52 


ao.04 


32.23 


23.51 


27.40 


Aggregate 33.65 


32.79 


28.1a 


30.46 


25.41 


31.73 



The addition of population to either class of 
States, by the acquisition of foreign territory, has 
been inconsiderable. Major Stoddard, in his sketch- 
es of Louisiana, computes the population of lower 
Louisiana at 41,700 whites, 38,800 slaves, and 2,500 
free blacks, and of upper Louisiana at 9,020 whites, 
and 1,320 slaves, at the date of the cession of that 
country to the United States. This is much higher 
than the Spanish official estimates of the population 
of Louisiana and Florida in 1801, which amounted 
to only 49,474. The United States census of Louis- 
iana, in 1810, exhibited a total population of only 



76,556. The total population of Florida, as it 
appears for the first time in the census of 1830, 
was only 34,730, and of this number the largest por- 
tion had emigrated thither from the United States. 
The population of Texas, at the period of its annex- 
ation to the American Union, consisted mainly of 
persons born in the United States, or of the descend- 
ants of such persons. The native Mexican popula- 
tion acquired with Texas, is about equal to the same 
class of population acquired with California. 

While it appears that the population of the free 
States has gained steadily upon the population of 
the slave States, during the period of sixty years, 
from 1790 to 1850, it appears also that the gain has 
not been either large, < •• increasing. It was less in 
the last decade than in the preceding decade. It 
may prove, during the current decade, to fall far 
short of the views of those who believe that the 
numbers of the free State.r. are swelling with resist- 
less rapidity beyond the numbers of the slave States. 
Undoubtedly, the gre^T h of Virginia and the Caro- 
linas is slow, but it i& not so slow as it was thirty- 
years ago. Undoubtedly, the Northwest is swelling 
its population at a prodigious rate, but so also is the 
Southwest. The political weight of the slave States 
in the American Confederacy, measured by numbers, 
has diminished during two generations, but only 
gradually, and almost imperceptibly, and is still 
great and formidable. The increase of numbers in 
those States, viewed as a whole, although less than 
in the free States, has been rapid and uninterrupted. 
Their population is three times that of all the States 
at the epoch of American Independence ; and it is 



not wonderful, looking to their absolute numbers, 
their prospective increase, the extent and magnifi- 
cence of the territory which they occupy, and the 
magnitude of their industrial resources, that a con- 
sciousness of power should incite them to schemes 
of further aggrandizement and more extended ambi- 
tion. 

It may be presumed that the natural increase of 
the white population of the slave States, being 
almost exclusively agricultural, is greater than the 
increase of the population of the free States, a large 
and augmenting proportion of which reside in cities. 
Indeed, without assuming this to be so, it will be 
difficult to understand why the relative gain of the 
free States has been so little, considering that they 
receive the great bulk of the foreign immigration, 
and considering, also, that the balance of the move- 
ment of population between the free and slave States 
has always been largely in favor of the former. 

The census of 1850 found 609,371 persons living 
in the free States, who were born in the slave States, 
and only 206,638 persons living in the slave States, 
who were born in the free States. The same census 
found 1,866,397 persons of foreign birth living in the 
free States, and only 378,205 persons of foreign birth 
living in the slave States. 

It is apparent that the superior increase of white 
population in the free States is not so exclusively 
attributable to foreign immigration as it is frequently 
said to be. It was less during the decade from 1840 
to 1850 than at any time during the last half cen- 
tury, and yet the foreign immigration between 1840 
and 1850 was vastly larger than ever before. From 



6 

1800 to 1810, with an inconsiderable foreign immi- 
gration, the white population of the free States 
gained upon that of the slave States more rapidly 
than in any other decade, with a single exception. 
If the free States are able to possess themselves 
of territories within the genial latitudes, so as to add 
the attractions of climate to those of their institu- 
tions, their accessions of numbers from the slave 
States will continue to constitute an important 
element of their increase. 

Turning now from a consideration of the advance 
of population, to the consideration of the territorial 
progress made by the free and slave States since 
1790, it will be found that the relative position of 
the latter has been well sustained. Occupying 
295,965 square miles of territory in 1790, they occu- 
pied in 1850, including Texas, 851,508 square miles, 
and excluding Texas, 614,004 square miles. In the 
same space of time, the territory of the free States 
had expanded from 166,358 square miles, to 612,597 
square miles, including California, and to 456,617 
square miles, excluding California. The slaveholding 
population had founded nourishing States west of the 
Mississippi, before the free population had reached 
that river. Missouri had been several years admitted 
into the Union, while Iowa remained wholly unoc- 
cupied. On the Gulf of Mexico, the slaveholding 
population, a generation ago, overleaping the bound- 
aries of the Confederacy, had passed the Sabine, 
and was advancing upon the Rio Grande. To vast 
accessions beyond the exterior limits of its occupancy 
in 1790, it had, within those limits, possessed itselt 
of the immense Territories once held by independent 



Indian nations in the States of North Carolina, Ten- 
nessee, and Georgia. In truth, the genius, the apt- 
itudes, and the habits of a slaveholding people, all 
point to territorial expansion. In free communi- 
ties, and especially in modern times, there is a 
tendency to the growth of cities and to density of 
population, so that increase of numbers does not 
necessarily require an increase of the space occupied. 
In the Southern States, confined to agriculture by 
negro slavery, space must be enlarged with numbers, 
and indeed in a greater ratio, because agriculture, 
as conducted under that system, continually requires 
new soils by exhausting old ones. The people of 
Virginia and the Carolinas would have been forced 
to emigration, had their population remained station- 
ary. Under the double pressure of increasing pop- 
ulation and diminishing resources, their people have 
been driven forth in vast and unprecedented num- 
bers. 

With an equal emigration, the slave-State popula- 
tion would spread over twice as much new territory 
as the free-State population. In 1850, the slave 
States contained eleven persons and three-tenths to 
the square mile, while the free States contained 
twenty-one persons and nine-tenths to the square 
mile. 

It is sometimes said that freedom is quick and 
nimble in its movements, while slavery is heavy and 
cumbersome ; that the free laborer will outstrip the 
slaveholder in the race for new lands ; and that if the 
territories of the Union are thrown open to unem- 
barrassed competition, the free States will win at 
least that proportion which is due to their numbers. 



8 

This may be a pleasing delusion, but it is a very shal- 
low one. In free communities, property becomes 
fixed in edifices, in machinery, and in improvements 
of the soil. In slave communities, there is scarcely 
any property except slaves, and they are easily 
movable. The freeman embellishes his home ; the 
slaveholder finds nothing to bind him to soils which 
he has exhausted. Freedom is enterprising, but not 
migratory, as slavery is. It is not in the nature of 
slavery to become attached to place. It is nomadic. 
The slaveholder leaves his impoverished fields with 
as little reluctance as the ancient Scythian aban- 
doned cropped pastures for fresh ones, and slaves 
are moved as readily as flocks and herds. Whether 
or not slavery be aggressive and ambitious, it is, 
beyond peradventure, restless, movable, and ever 
ready to enlarge its borders. So far, in the history 
of this country, the slave States have maintained 
that superiority in extent of territory over the free 
States, which they possessed when our Government 
was organized. This superiority they will probably 
retain during a long period of time, if we exclude 
from view our Pacific possessions, which formed no 
part of our original system, and whose permanent 
attachment to it is neither certain, nor essential. 

Advancing in population, if not so rapidly as 
the free States, nevertheless, at a rate of progress 
without precedent in any other age, or country; 
advancing in territorial enlargement even more 
rapidly than the free States; the slave States nave 
been also able to maintain the vigor and dominancy 
of their peculiar institution along their whole north- 
ern line, where it was menaced by the competition 



9 

and antagonism of free labor. It was the expressed 
opinion of Washington, in 1795, that Maryland and 
Virginia could not long delay the measure of eman- 
cipation, of which Pennsylvania had set the example. 
The predicted event, after the lapse of two genera- 
tions, appears, to the superficial view, as distant as 
ever. Virginia, in sentiment and feeling, if not in 
interest, is more stubbornly slaveholding than ever 
before. So also is the Maryland which Washington, 
knew, and of which he spoke; the agricultural and 
planting Maryland, upon Chesapeake Bay, and upon 
the navigable Potomac. The principal foothold 
which free labor has in Maryland has been acquired 
since "Washington's time, in the newly-risen city of 
Baltimore; and even there, it has not yet found an 
effective voice. While advancing south and west 
with giant strides, the slave States have yielded no 
inch of their northern frontier. Spreading to the 
Gulf of Mexico, passing the Mississippi, and reaching 
even to the Rio Grande, they hold with an unshaken 
grasp the waters of the Chesapeake Bay; and 
beyond the mountains, their ranks, along the whole 
southern shore of the Ohio, are this clay firm, 
unbroken, and bristling with defiant strength. Suc- 
cumbing slowly to an inevitable fortune, and long 
postponing what they cannot forever avert, they 
have so far preserved a political power, strong 
enough, by its compactness, its unity of purpose, 
and the skillfulness of its direction, to control a 
great Eepublic. Prompt to appreciate the genius 
of their system, they have thus far found in terri- 
torial expansion, and in the constant appropriation 
of new soils, the means at once of preserving the 



10 

vigor of their own institutions, and of partially coun- 
terbalancing the growth of population in the free 
States. This policy they will pursue hereafter, as 
they have pursued it heretofore, with undiminished 
energy. The races which lie in the path of their 
natural movement, will of themselves prove feeble 
barriers to a power, which, in two generations, has 
strided over half a continent. The men who have 
controlled the fortunes of negro slavery to the present 
day, have seemed to find in fresh difficulties only 
new occasions for illustrating their enterprise, their 
resources, and their audacity. History will not be 
fairly written, if it does not acknowledge their admin- 
istrative vigor, their largeness of comprehension, and 
their unshaken steadiness of purpose. Most deeply 
is it to be deplored, that these high qualities, instead 
of being directed to the extension and perpetuation 
of a system inherently unsound, had not been mani- 
fested in efforts to displace it safely, gradually, and 
peacefully, by one more in harmony with the econ- 
omy, the ethics, and the manners, of an enlightened 
age. 



CHAPTER H. 

Considerations rendering it probable that slavery will cease to exist 
in Missouri. Connection between slavery and the prices of land. 
Missouri at present more inviting to the free emigrant than Vir- 
ginia. Commanding position of Missouri. 

Although the relative gain in population of the 
free over the slave States, in any single decade 



11 

between 1790 and 1850, is not heavy, yet it occurs 
at each decade, and the aggregate effect of the whole 
sixty years is large. 

In 1790, the total population was nearly equal in 
the two classes of States, being 1,968,452 in the free 
States, and 1,961,375 in the slave States. 

In 1850, the population of the slave States had 
increased to 9,651,500, while that of the free States 
had increased to 13,526,302, which is an excess of 
forty per cent. 

The future gain of the free States, resulting from 
the same causes, is not likely to be in a less ratio 
hereafter. In addition to this, it may reasonably be 
anticipated that some States now maintaining the 
institution of slavery will rid themselves of it, thus 
adding still more rapidly to the political ascendency 
of the free States. To do so in Delaware, only 
requires that legislative form should be given to a 
substantially existing fact; while it seems probable 
that the actual course of events is rapidly accomplish- 
ing the same result in Missouri. To predict any- 
thing of Virginia and Maryland, might only be to 
repeat the mistake of General "Washington in 1795. 
We may pronounce upon the interests of mankind. 
It is more difficult to gauge their passions and an- 
ticipate their follies. 

In considering this matter, so interesting to the 
free States as communities, and to free labor in all 
the States, it must be observed that the question of 
emancipation in Missouri, and 'the probabilities of 
emancipation in Missouri, are altogether different 
from the same question and the same probabilities 
in Maryland and Virginia, or even in Kentucky. 



12 

That Missouri emancipates her slaves, if she shall 
determine to do so, will not much tend to increase 
the probability, by parity of facts or analogy of 
reasoning, that Virginia, or Maryland, or Kentucky, 
will do the same thing. The predicaments are not 
the same, and the cases will be governed, if even 
with the same results, by widely variant causes. 

It is one thing to establish slavery by law : that 
is, to make slavery lawful; quite another thing to 
cause it to exist in fact. Missouri, with an area of 
67,380 square miles, was admitted into the Union, 
with a Constitution establishing slavery, immedi- 
ately after the census of 1820, which found within 
its limits a slave population of only 10,222, against 
a free population of 56,364. It was plain, that the 
destiny of so vast an area was not fixed by numbers 
so insignificant, and that it remained to be determined 
by the course of events, and especially by the char- 
acter of future immigration. In climate and pro- 
ductions, Missouri is equally adapted to slave and 
free labor, and its local position invites settlement 
equally from the free and slave States. The actual 
progress of its population has been as follows : 

Year. Total Population. Slaves. 

1820 66,586 10,222 

1830 140,455 25,091 

1840 - 383,702 58,240 

1850 ------ 682,044 87,422 

1856 ------ 903,599 100,115 

The figures for 1856 are taken from newspaper re- 
ports of the census of that year, but are presumed to 
be substantially accurate. 



13 

In the first decade, the proportion of slaves in- 
creased. Since 1830, it has steadily declined; so 
that they now constitute only one-ninth of the total 
population. The admission of Missouri into the 
Union having been attended by a fierce controversy, 
terminating in the triumph of the slaveholding in- 
terest, it was natural that free immigration should at 
first he repelled, while the owners of slave labor 
would as naturally be inclined to proceed to reduce 
their conquest to possession. Since 1830, a more 
southerly direction has been given to slave labor, by 
the development of the cotton culture, by the re- 
moval of Indians from the Gulf States, and by the 
acquisition of Texas. But although the proportion 
of slaves diminished from 1830 to 1850, their abso- 
lute numbers increased perceptibly faster than their 
natural increase, so that they must have still contin- 
ued to be brought in from abroad. Since 1850, they 
have only maintained their natural increase, and no 
more can have been brought iu than have been car- 
ried out. On the other hand, all circumstances favor 
an advancing ratio in the increase of the free popu- 
lation. The great westward movement of the emi- 
gration from the free States, in the path of which lies 
Missouri, is now in full flood. Missouri is projected 
north to the parallel of forty degrees thirty minutes, 
and fronts Illinois. On the north, Iowa has sprung 
into existence within twenty years, and already teems 
with people. On the west is Kansas, destined to be 
a free State, if all the omens be not fallacious. On 
the south is Arkansas, a slave State indeed, but a 
slave-buying and not a slave-breeding State. Ar- 
kansas will attract slaves and slaveholders from Mis- 



14 

souri, rather than furnish them to her. The now 
evident insecurity of the tenure of slavery in Mis- 
souri will repel the further immigration of slave- 
holders, while the dawning prospect of freedom will 
invite free labor. 

In large portions of Missouri, slavery has never 
existed to any important extent. The counties 
adjoining Iowa, ten in number, contained, in 1856, 
57,255 whites, and only 871 slaves. Of the one 
hundred and seven counties, ninety-five, occupying 
four-fifths of the area of the State, contained, in 
1856, 669,921 whites, and only 57,471 slaves, or 
nearly twelve to one. In twenty-five of these coun- 
ties, there was an absolute decrease of the number 
of slaves from 1850 to 1856. In the whole ninety- 
five counties, the increase of slaves in that period 
was only 2,264. 

Slavery is not strong, and has never been so, 
except in twelve counties in the centre of the State, 
embracing about one-fifth of its area, and lying 
principally upon the Missouri river. It was in these 
counties that the principal increase of slaves occurred 
between 1850 and 1856. Their population at those 
periods was as follows : 

Year. Whites. Slaves. 

1850 108,559 32,414 

1856 129,983 42,644 

In two of these counties, Lafayette and Howard, 
(strange desecration of names !) the absolute increase 
of slaves was 2,276, while that of the whites was 
only 1,243, the per centage of increase being still 
more largely in favor of the slaves. This is slavery 



15 

in high vigor, but not in its highest vigor. To 
witness that, we must visit those numerous portions 
of the Gulf States, in which, while slaves increase, 
the number of freemen absolutely diminishes, the 
white man being expatriated and extirpated to make 
room for the negro. 

If it be assumed, as it probably should be, that 
slaves are sufficiently numerous in these twelve 
counties to enable the slaveholding. interest to sacri- 
fice everything to itself, it should be observed that 
they embrace but a fifth part of the area of the State, 
although its choicest agricultural portion, less than 
a fifth part of the total population, and considerably 
less than a fifth part of the white population. Their 
increase of population also, is, and must continue to 
be, less than that of the four-fifths of the State in 
which free-labor interests predominate.* 

It has been proved to be true in the history of 
this country, that where those who own and cultivate 
the soil by slave labor are confronted by those who, 
bred in the habits and with the education of free 
communities, own and cultivate the soil with their 
own hands, the planter retires before the farmer, 
slowly, perhaps, but invariably. The fact is notice- 
able along the whole line which separates Delaware, 
Maryland, and Virginia, from the free States. With- 
out intending at present to comment upon all the 
causes which lie at the bottom of this fact, it is 
sufficient to observe, that the system of small free- 
holds and of free labor gives a value to land, which 



* The writer is indebted for many of these facts and views to an 
able speech delivered in the Missouri Legislature, 1857, by Hon. B. 
Gratz Brown. 



16 

puts it out of the reach of the slave-owner, or induces 
him to dispose of what he possesses. The dispro- 
portion in the price of land in the free and slave 
States is enormous. Undoubtedly, it is an objection 
(although greatly overrated) to the holding of slaves 
in the border counties of Maryland and Virginia, 
that they have opportunities to escape. But if slaves 
were ever so secure, the high and advancing price 
of land must be a constant inducement to the slave- 
holder occupying it, to dispose of his interest in the 
soil to those who are enabled, by a different econom- 
ical system, to pay more for it than it is worth to 
him. The slaveholder yields to this inducement, 
and withdraws to localities where the valuation of 
lands and slaves enables them to be worked in 
combination with profit. If slavery was again legal- 
ized in Pennsylvania, it could not possess itself of 
the agriculture of that State. The high prices of 
farming land would effectually repel it. 

If the returns of the census of 1850 arc reliable, 
while the average value of farms per acre in the free 
States was $19.83, it was in the slave States only 
$6.18, or less than one-third. In the border slave 
States, it was $9.25; in the other slave States, omit- 
ting Louisiana, it averaged only $3.74. 

In the two counties of Delaware adjacent to Penn- 
sylvania and New Jersey, and having one per cent, of 
the population slaves, it was $31.59. In the remain- 
ing county, having six per cent, of slaves, it was $7.79. 

In the counties of Maryland adjoining Pennsyl- 
vania, having five per cent, of slaves, it was $29.63. 
In the remaining counties, having about forty per 
cent, of slaves, it was $13.83. 



IT 

In the counties of Virginia adjoining Pennsyl- 
vania, and having but a trifling per centage of 
slaves, although the lands are poor and mountain- 
ous, it was $12.98. In the remaining counties in 
the State, it was $8.42. 

The following were the prices per acre in the 
States and counties named, and the per centage of 
slaves in Kentucky and the counties named : 

Value Per cent, 
per acre, of slaves. 

Ohio $19.99 

Indiana ----- 10.66 

Illinois 7.99 

Kentucky 9.03 22 

Ohio counties adjoining Kentucky - 32.34 
Kentucky counties adjoining Ohio - 18.27 10 
Indiana counties adjoining Kentucky 11.34 
Kentucky counties adjoining Indiana 10.44 21 
Illinois counties adjacent to Kentucky 4.65 
Kentucky counties adjacent to Illinois 4.54 18 

It seems that in 1850 the prices of land in Indiana 
and Illinois were not materially different from prices 
in Kentucky, either over the general area of those 
States, or in the border counties. As a consequence, 
Kentucky was able to maintain its general average 
of slaves on the line adjoining Indiana and Illinois. 
On the other hand, a relatively high price of land 
in the border counties of Ohio is found, in connec- 
tion with less than half the average of slaves in 
the adjacent part of Kentucky. Free labor from 
Indiana and Illinois was not attracted to Kentucky, 
as it was from Ohio, by relatively lower prices of 
land. "When the prices of land in Indiana and Illi- 



18 

nois have advanced to the general average of the 
free States, as they may have done since 1850, free 
labor will pass from them to Kentucky, as it has 
from Ohio, and the ratio of slaves in the adjacent 
portions of Kentucky must recede. 

It is an essential condition, however, of the tri- 
umph of free labor over slave labor, in a contest for 
the possession of the soil, that the free labor should 
have had the training of free communities. In such 
a contest, the non-slaveholders of the South, who as 
a class (of course, with many exceptions) are shift- 
less, thriftless, ignorant, and degraded, are no match 
for the slaveholders. In the old slave States, they 
do not enter upon such a contest at all, and aspire 
as little to the ownership of acres as they do to the 
ownership of slaves. If, escaping into the new slave 
States, tlicw enjoy a temporary freedom, and even 
attain the dignity of freeholders, they are soon fol- 
lowed by their old masters, and reduced to their 
ancient condition. These observations are, of course, 
to be applied only to the non-slaveholders of those 
portions of the South in which slavery is dominant. 
There are other portions of the South in which sla- 
very scarcely exists, and which are substantially free 
communities, with a sturdy and vigorous yeomanry. 
The following has been the progress of population 
in Tennessee: 

Year. Whites. Slaves. 

1790 - • - - 32,013 3,417 

1800 91,709 13,584 

1810 215,875 44,535 

1820 339,927 80,107 

1830 535,746 141,603 



19 

1840 640,627 183,059 

1850 756,836 239,459 

Kentucky had, in 1790, 61,133 whites to 11,830 
slaves; in 1850, 761,413 whites to 210,981 slaves. 

In both these States, the slaveholders have pos- 
sessed themselves of all the land and all the wealth 
of every kind. The whites have been constantly 
driven out, and the proportion of slaves has been 
constantly increasing. 

The condition of things in Alabama was eloquently 
described in an address, published in 1856, by Hon. 
C. C. Clay, jun., United States Senator from that 
State. Mr. Clay says : 

" Our wealthier farmers, with greater means and 
' no more skill, are buying out their poorer neighbors, 
' extending their slave plantations, and adding to their 
■ slave force. The wealthy few, who are able to live 
' on smaller profits, and to give their blasted fields 
' some rest, are thus pushing off the many who are 
6 merely independent. Of the $20,000,000 annually 
' realized from the sale of the cotton crop of Alabama, 
6 nearly all not expended in supporting the producers, 

* is re-invested in land and negroes. Thus the white 
'population has decreased and the slave increased 
' almost pari passu, in several counties of our State. 
'In 1825, Madison* county cast about 3,000 votes; 
' now, she cannot cast exceeding 2,300. In traversing 
' that county, one will discover numerous farm-houses, 
6 once the abode of industrious and intelligent free- 
i men, now occupied by slaves, or tenantless, deserted, 
' and dilapidated ; he will observe fields, once fertile, 
4 now unfenced, abandoned, and covered with those 

* evil harbingers, foxtail and. broom sedge ; he will see 
4 the moss growing on the mouldering walls of once 
1 thrifty villages, and will find ' one only master grasps 

* the whole domain,' that once furnished happy homes 
1 for a dozen white families. Indeed, a county in its 



20 

■ infancy, where fifty years ago scarce a forest tree 

■ had been felled by the axe of the pioneer, is already 

■ exhibiting the painful signs of sterility and decay, 
'apparent in Virginia and the Carolinas." 

Facts like these, which are multiplied in the his- 
tory of this country, have produced a belief that 
black slavery once planted is ineradicable, and that 
sooner or later it will accomplish its complete work, 
the expulsion and destruction of the white man, and 
substitute the negro in his place. There is, how- 
ever, a sufficient number of facts, of a contrary char- 
acter, in the border counties of Delaware, Maryland, 
and Virginia, in the vicinity of the city of Wash- 
ington, and elsewhere, to induce us to pause before 
accepting so melancholy a conclusion. A closer ex- 
amination will show, that these conflicting phenom 
ena arise out of substantially diverse conditions. 
Free labor, intelligent, educated, animated by the 
impulse of acquiring property, and trained to habits 
of thrift, is an overmatch for slave labor; but where 
free labor is nearly destitute of these qualities, and 
it is sometimes wholly so, it succumbs in the strug- 
gle. That it triumphs, or is defeated, under one set 
of conditions, does not warrant the conclusion that 
it will triumph, or be defeated, under another set of 
conditions. If it might be true that half a million 
of English* paupers, with the habits, physical, intel- 
lectual, and moral, induced by long ages of pauper- 
ism, if they could be supposed to be transferred to 
Texas, would there be overcome and rooted out 1 >y 
the advancing tide of slaveholders; it by no means 
follows, that the same fate awaits the thriving Ger- 
mans who are planting themselves in that magnifi- 
cent region. If those unhappy whites, who fled, 



21 

after the Revolutionary War, from wretchedness and 
degradation in North Carolina, to the wilds of Ten- 
nessee, have been again subdued by pursuing mas- 
ters ; it by no means follows that the same fate awaits 
the indomitable yeomanry of the free States, who 
may be placed, by the currents and fortunes of mi- 
gration, in contact with the slaveholder. The farm- 
ers of Vermont, or of Pennsylvania, or of Ohio, 
are no such antagonists as that unfortunate class of 
whites at the South, who, participating in none of 
the benefits of slavery, yet suffer its worst evils. 
"Wherever the owner of slave labor encounters these 
new and unaccustomed antagonists, he must suc- 
cumb, sooner or later, to their superior vigor. He 
can neither purchase their acres, nor even retain his 
own, against the ever-present temptation of the ad- 
vancing prices which their superior thrift enables 
them to offer to him. 

Undoubtedly, therefore, it is not a sufficient basis 
for assuming the escape of Missouri from slavery, 
that the numerical preponderance of the whites is 
large. That circumstance alone might be insuffi- 
cient. In connection, however, with the present 
and prospective elements and character of the popu- 
lation, it may be regarded as decisive. 

In 1850, the free persons in Missouri were divided, 
in respect to nativity, as follows : 

Born in Missouri 277,604 

Other slave States 187,518 

Free States -------- 55,624 

Germany 45,049 

Other foreign countries - - - - 27,425 



22 

Of those born in Missouri, a considerable propor- 
tion must have escaped the most blighting effects of 
slavery, which has had, at no period, a firm and 
established hold upon the State. Of the immigrants 
living in it in 1850, more than two-fifths were born 
in free communities. Of the immigrants now living 
in it, probably a majority were born in free commu- 
nities; and circumstances may be supposed, which 
may direct thither a current of free emigration, 
powerful enough to sweep away all barriers existing 
to its course. 

Of the 41,623,680 acres of land in Missouri, there 
had been disposed of, by sales, grants, and confirm- 
ations of private claims, as late as June 30, 1853, 
only 18,900,869 acres. There remained undisposed 
of, and still the property of the United States, 
22,722,811 acres. It was not possible, in the recent 
and present condition of things in the adjacent free 
States, that this great body of fertile lands, in a 
genial climate, should escape the vigilant attention 
of individual interests. When lands had been car- 
ried up to ten and twenty dollars per acre in Illinois 
and Iowa, they could not remain at one dollar and 
twenty-five cents per acre in Missouri ; and the price 
of a large part of the public lands in Missouri had 
been reduced even lower than that by the Gradua- 
tion Act of 1854. The current information of the 
day is, that the land offices in that State are besieged 
by competing applicants, and that there is even 
now scarcely a sufficiency of land for the insatiable 
demand. When the whole of the soil shall have 
become private property, as less than half of it was 
in 1853, the inducement to expel slavery, which 



23 

results from its depreciating effect upon the value 
and price of land, will be doubled. 

If the direction of free immigration is influenced 
by political considerations, as it legitimately may be, 
Missouri is a much more inviting point than either 
Maryland, or Virginia. In area, it nearly equals 
them both; it surpasses them both in agricultural 
capacities ; and even in mineral resources, by which 
they are specially distinguished, it is not inferior to 
them. In representative population, estimated by 
the rule of the Federal Constitution, it will approx- 
imate closely to Virginia at the census of 1860. If 
it becomes a free State, it will, at the census of 1870, 
outnumber Virginia and Maryland combined. In 
position, it is admirable. It is the gate of the high- 
way to the Great West beyond the Mississippi, while 
its command of the river, from which it derives its 
name, gives it a transcendent geographical import- 
ance. If free institutions become predominant upon 
the Missouri, as they already are upon the Ohio, 
their political and commercial control over the lower 
Mississippi is assured and immovable ; and the poli- 
ticians who are endeavoring to subvert the Union, 
are baffled for an indefinite period of time. Thus 
pre-eminently desirable as an acquisition to the free 
States, Missouri may be easily and quickly won by 
them ; while the regeneration of Virginia and Mary- 
land, by any movement originating in the free 
States, must be a long and difficult undertaking. 

If the direction of so much of the free emigration 
as tends to the genial latitudes, is controlled, as it 
mainly will be in point of fact, not by political con- 
siderations, but by the interests, hopes, and tastes, 



24 

of the individual emigrants, Missouri presents nu- 
merous attractions, absolutely and comparatively. 
If Eastern Virginia was unoccupied, and in a state 
of nature, it would be a wide and rich field for enter- 
prise and adventure. Filled as it now is with a bar- 
barous and degraded population, white and black, 
and with the fertility of its fields sapped and ex- 
hausted, it is far from inviting. Free immigrants 
there, will be for years a politically proscribed class, 
and will hold even their lives and property by the 
base tenure of hypocritical support of, or acquies- 
cence in, a system which they detest. In due time, 
the pressure from the populous North will overcome 
all obstacles; but it need not yet be directed to a 
field so repulsive. It is the strange destiny of the 
white race on this continent to be the gleaners after 
the negro. It is the negro who has extracted the 
virgin richness of its best soils, to be restored by the 
sweat and toil, the brain and muscle, of the white 
man. In due order and progression, Hercules will 
perform all his labors ; but those who seek kindly 
skies, are not yet compelled to nerve themselves to 
the work of redeeming Atlantic Virginia. Missouri 
does not need to be redeemed, but only to be occu- 
pied. It offers, not blasted fields to be reclaimed, 
but the richest bounties of nature, still intact, and 
yet to be appropriated by the provident forethought 
and vigorous hand of the freeman. The free immi- 
grant will be welcomed, instead of being threatened 
with fire and sword, as he is by the organs of public 
opinion at the capital of Virginia. The great city 
of St. Louis has established free speech and free dis- 
cussion as the law of Missouri. The way lies open. 



25 

The problem in respect to Missouri was, and is, 
what institutions shall be dominant in a region, 
whose institutions are not yet definitely fixed. The 
problem in respect to Maryland and Virginia is, by 
what processes, through what efforts and sacrifices, 
and in the lapse of what period, States gangrened to 
the vitals by a fatal mischief, can be restored to 
health and soundness. Happy for them, if they do 
not present a new verification of the truth, that 
while diseases may be quick, remedies must be slow. 



CHAPTER HI. 

Considerations rendering it probable that the emigration from the 
free States, hitherto moving westward, may hereafter tend south- 
ward, to Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky. Accumulated power 
of the population of the free States. No apology for slavery in the 
northern slave States. The right of emigration between the States. 

In the interval between 1790 and 1850, the slaves 
m the slave States increased five-fold; from 657,533 
to 3,200,364. In the same interval, the whites in 
the free States increased seven-fold; from 1,900,976 
to 13,330,650, and outnumbered the slaves more than 
four to one, instead of only three to one, as in 1790. 
The ratio of the increase of the slaves is a declining 
one, while that of the free States is steady, and may 
be an augmenting one. It is most clear, that free 
labor is accumulating an enormous power, for what- 
ever point and whatever moment the two opposing 
forces may come into collision. 

That moment has not yet arrived, and may yet be 
longer postponed. The territorial acquisitions of the 




_:- i- 





i* _ 









-.- .11 i .- - _j*--i~ 

~ ~ - 1 - 1 _• •; . "1 

- 

in~i*: .- ~n i- " 



28 

newspapers, proves the practicability of continuous 
settlements on that line quite to the limits of Cali- 
fornia, and the existence, on the greater part of the 
line, of exceedingly desirable tracts of land. 

Upon the whole, therefore, while it must be con- 
ceded, that the head of the "column of free emigra- 
tion, within the parallels which now circumscribe its 
principal movement, is in sight of the farthest west- 
ern limit of arable soils ; it may find outlets both to 
the north and to the south, and may, perhaps, even 
continue still west, by changing its modes of indus- 
try. The information we have is not exact, and 
leaves a wide range for probable conjectures. But 
it is certain, that the capabilities of the central re- 
gions of the continent appear thus far greater and 
better, as our knowledge of them is extended. 

But even if the western current of free emigration 
encounters no such absolute barrier as once seemed 
to threaten it in the "Great American Desert," de- 
lineated on the maps executed twenty-five years ago, 
and even if the fullness of its volume is not dimin- 
ished by other causes, the proportion contributed to 
it by the Atlantic States will undoubtedly fall off. 
The belt of the free States is narrow from north to 
south, compared with its extension in the opposite 
direction. From the city of New York to the line 
of Kansas and Nebraska is nearly fifteen hundred 
miles. Distances so vast must check even the mi- 
gratory adventure of modern times. Other things 
being at all equal, men will prefer to confine their 
wanderings within a range which will enable them 
oftener and easier to revisit their kindred and the 
scenes of their youth. Kansas will be filled, and 



29 

Nebraska will be filled, and so even will be our most 
distant possessions upon the Pacific. Nevertheless, 
if not repelled by a peculiar institution, the emigra- 
tion from the Northern Atlantic seaboard would 
more naturally have directed itself upon Maryland, 
and Virginia, and Kentucky. It is often said that 
there is a tendency in emigration to keep within the 
latitudes of its sources. The truth is, the tendency 
of northerly races is to move southward, attracted 
by a more gorgeous flora, brighter suns, and balmier 
airs. This is the natural tendency everywhere, and 
it has only been checked in its operation here by 
exceptional causes. So, also, there is a tendency in 
races born and bred in proximity to the ocean, to 
remain near it. Accustomed to the food which it 
furnishes, and to its invigorating breezes, wonted to 
its sights and to its sounds, it is with reluctance that 
they seek homes in the heart of a continent. The 
denizen of Cape Cod does not willingly transfer 
himself to the wilds of Nebraska. The great man 
who built his tomb at Marshfield, within the sound 
of the ocean's surge, only acknowledged a common 
New England instinct. The navigators and fisher- 
men of the North, following the coast, would now 
swarm upon the waters of Chesapeake Bay, and 
would have penetrated all its rivers and creeks and 
inlets, palaces would have commanded all its pros- 
pects, and wealth and taste would have enhanced all 
its natural beauties, but for the repelling presence 
of the African race. 

The motives thus far suggested, to dissuade the 
emigration from the Atlantic free States from a fur- 
ther westward progress, and to divert it southward, 



30 

are connected with, matters of mere feeling and sen- 
timent. They are not less real, and will not be less 
efficient, on that account. They are enforced, more- 
over, by considerations of obvious and tangible in- 
terest. If the extreme west now reached is to be 
principally agricultural, as it probably will be for a 
long period, its remoteness from market imposes a 
tax of transportation, which, at ordinary prices, must 
reduce profits to a minimum standard, or destroy 
them altogether. "Whenever the raising of wheat 
for the New York or foreign markets can be profit- 
able in Nebraska, it must be enormously so in East- 
ern Virginia. If stock growers can realize money 
across the Mississippi, they can realize more money 
in the fine grazing region on the south side of the 
Ohio. Distance from market is a permanent draw- 
back upon the intrinsic value of lands; and not the 
less so, because under temporary excitements it does 
not always affect their price. It would be impossible 
that emigration westward from the Atlantic States 
should not be checked, at some point, by mere re- 
moteness, even if good lands still invited onwards. 
The inducement to turn southward to regions upon 
the Atlantic, or in available communication with it, 
must continually gain in power, and in no long time 
become decisive. 

Not the least of the attractions which now draw 
population across the Mississippi are the disposal of 
the public lands at prices lower than either their 
real or market value, and the prior right of purchase 
secured to actual occupants. The temptation of 
securing Government lands at one dollar and a 
quarter per acre proves irresistible. The pre-emp- 



31 



tors have become so numerous as to absorb the 
whole public domain, the settlements keeping pace 
with the surveys. This is what is now going on in 
Kansas, in Nebraska, and Minnesota; and it u what 
will continue, until the Government ceases to be a 
land proprietor, in so much of those regions as is 4 
present desirable for occupation. When that period, 
not now remote, arrives, land will he obtainable 
there only at market prices. There will no longer 
be a bounty offered to settlers. Emigrants wdl no 
longer cross the Mississippi to occupy lands artin- 
cially cheapened in price. 

Not only are the public lands m the Western 
States disposed of at less than their actual and 
market value, hut those States are provided with 
immense lines of railroads, constructed out ot the 
proceeds of these lands, and not only without 
expense to themselves, but actually contributing 
largely towards their public charges. In this way, 
Illinois received a railroad of seven hundred miles, 
the entire cost of which is met by lands granted by 
the United States; and it is supposed that the tax 
agreed to be paid by the road to the State, will soon 
equal the entire support of its Government. Similar 
grants, and from which similar results are not unrea- 
sonably expected, have been made to other Western 
States. They are not here referred to, with the 
intention of expressing any opinion as to their pro- 
priety or impropriety, but as constituting one of the 
causes which just now give to the emigration from 
the free States on the Atlantic, a western rather 
than a southern direction. 

When the public lands available for settlement in 



32 

the Western States are sold and granted, an unnat- 
ural and disturbing influence upon the value of 
property and the movement of population will cease 
to exist; and they will both be governed by the 
principles which ordinarily and permanently control 
them. The unoccupied lands in the free States, 
east of the Mississippi, which are now in little 
request in some of them, will become objects of 
demand; and the tendency of the free population 
to press upon the northern tier of slave States will 
become strong, and finally irresistible. 

The population of the free States, if it augments 
during the current decade in the same ratio as in 
the last, and the ratio will probably be higher, will 
amount, in 1860, to 18,805,015. Deducting the 
numbers which may be assumed for Minnesota, 
Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and California, there will 
be left for the free States east of the Mississippi a 
population of about seventeen millions, compressed 
upon an area of 405,703 square miles. As compared 
with the area and population and numbers to the 
square mile of the free States in 1790, this area is 
less than two and a half times greater, while the 
population will be more than eight and a half times 
greater, and there will be forty-six persons and three- 
tenths, instead of eleven persons and eight-tenths, 
to the square mile. The hive is becoming filled, 
and preparing to pour forth its swarms — 

" A multitude, like which the populous North 
Poured never from her frozen loins, to pass 
Rhine or the Danaw." 

The forces of nature act in silence and unobserved, 
and by imperceptible degrees. So succeed to each 



33 

other the revolving seasons ; so advance and recede 
the tides ; so waxes and wanes the vital energy of 
nations and of men. It is only after the lapse of 
time that we mark the expanding tree, which yet 
ceases not to grow, either by day or in the stillness 
of the night. So unnoticed, so by inappreciable 
accretions, and so measured only at intervals, has 
arisen this population of the free States, now assu- 
ming such vast proportions. The child has become 
a man, and has the thews and muscles of a giant. 
Eo such mass of moral, intellectual, or even physi- 
cal power, has ever been found before, in one polit- 
ical combination, in the history of man. Bodily 
strength is no longer the only physical power. 
Machinery is physical power. Accumulated capital 
is physical power. Science is physical power. Skill 
is physical power. Measured by all true tests, the 
educated and intelligent millions of the free States 
make up an aggregate of strength, without a paral- 
lel since the world began. 

The strong man cannot be bound with withes. 
The population of the free States, increasing and 
multiplying, will demand outlets, and will obtain 
outlets, in the direction of any system less vigorous 
than their own ; which is only saying, that in politi- 
cal dynamics, the greater force will overcome the 
less. As they cease to pass the Mississippi, they 
will begin to pass the Ohio and the Potomac. An 
inferior civilization must give room to that which is 
superior. It ought not to be tolerated, that eight 
hundred thousand black slaves should, by their 
presence in Maryland, and Virginia, and Kentucky, 
exclude five times that number of skillful and intel- 



34 

ligent white artisans and farmers from the North. 
Not only ought it not to he tolerated, hut it will not 
he tolerated. When the white artisans and farmers 
want the room which the African occupies, they will 
take it, not by rude force, hut by gentle and gradual 
and peaceful processes. The negro will disappear, 
perhaps to regions more congenial to him, perhaps 
to regions where his labors can be made more use- 
ful, perhaps by some process of colonization which 
charity may yet devise ; but, at all events, he will dis- 
appear. It is not more certain that the native Indian 
recedes before the Anglo-Saxon, than that rude labor 
will recede before skilled labor; and slave labor, the 
slave being an African, can never be anything but 
labor of the rudest description. 

Strangely enough, it has ceased to be the national 
fashion in America to say anything in praise of free- 
dom. No " Odes to freedom" are composed, or sung, 
in modern times, except by those who are content to 
turn their backs upon all hopes of political advance- 
ment. The very name of freedom has become a 
hissing, a by-word, and a reproach. The Poets Lau- 
reate are at the court and in the service of slavery. 
Upon the altars of that idol, at once hideous and 
grotesque, smoke the fattest burnt offerings, and 
the richest incense ascends daily. And yet how 
mean, and squalid, and poverty-stricken, and bar- 
barous a thing slavery is, in contrast with that free- 
dom which America this day disdains and disowns, 
but to which she owes all her greatness and all her 
glory, her fertile fields, her teeming workshops, her 
stately ships, her thronged cities, her arts, her gen- 
ius, and her culture. The intrinsic vigor of freedom, 



35 

however, is not impaired by the refusal of men to 
acknowledge it ; nor does a wretched idol become a 
true divinity, because men choose to worship it. 
"When the trial of strength between freedom and 
slavery is made along the line between the free and 
slave States, we shall see in which force are embod- 
ied the elements of permanent ascendency. 

The climate of Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky, 
is salubrious, and perfectly adapted to the white 
man. It is much more so, indeed, than that of New 
England. In respect to health, it is the most desi- 
rable zone in the United States. There is no exces- 
sive heat to prevent the performance of labor by 
white men. Certain cultivations in certain localities 
cannot be carried on without the negro, as that of 
rice in the Carolinas. Of no part of this northern 
tier of slave States, and of no cultivation now, or ever 
carried on in them, is this true. The negro is not 
needed, and must give way when the white race de- 
mand the room which he occupies. 

The gradual withdrawal of slavery from Mary- 
land, and Virginia, and Kentucky, was, until lately, 
regarded on all hands as not only inevitable, but de- 
sirable. The annexation of Texas was made palata- 
ble to the North by the belief that the movement of 
slavery southward would thereby be hastened. [See 
Appendix A.] It is only recently that the mainte- 
nance of slavery in the temperate latitudes has been 
desired ; and this, not with reference to the economi- 
cal necessities or advantages of the system, but with 
reference to considerations of political power. It 
was from this new view of things, founded upon 
Mr. Calhoun's notion of a balance of power between 



the free and slave States, that the introduction of 
slavery into Kansas was desired. That movement 
has failed, although hacked by the patronage, and 
even by the arms, of the Government of the United 
States. Freedom, under every conceivable and in- 
conceivable disadvantage, is proving itself too strong 
for slavery in Kansas, and will yet upset all theories 
of an equality of power, by taking possession of the 
Potomac and of the southern side of the Ohio. The 
higher civilization in the United States, based upon 
free labor, advancing at a rate of progression more 
rapid than that of the lower civilization of slavery, 
has attained a superiority of power too overwhelming 
to be held in restraint by paper checks and balances. 

The right of the people of each State to emigrate 
freely into other States, and enjoy all the privileges 
of citizenship in them, is among the fundamental 
rights secured by the Constitution of the United 
States. 

" The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all priv- 
1 ileges and immunities of citizens in the several States." 

It is this right which makes us one people in point 
of law, and it is the exercise of this right which, as 
much as anything else, makes us one people in point 
of fact. The right of a citizen of Maine to acquire 
and occupy lands in Virginia is as perfect, as inde- 
feasible, as strictly a birthright, rests upon as ample 
considerations, and depends as little upon favor, as 
does his right to occupy and acquire lands at home. 
In that respect, the States constitute but one coun- 
try, of which the liberties were won and are still 
defended by the common efforts of all, and are 
equally open, in every part, to the common possession 



37 

of all. Freedom of emigration is constitutionally as 
complete and sacred as freedom of trade. If it is 
one of the advantages of the Union that the produc- 
tions of each State are entitled to unobstructed 
markets in every other, it is equally one of its 
advantages that the citizens of each State are enti- 
tled, in any State to which their pleasure or interest 
may attract them, to every privilege and immunity 
of citizenship therein. 

When, in due time, the movement across the 
Mississippi having spent its force, and the more 
immediately inviting field of the State of Missouri 
having been occupied, the free emigration shall 
direct itself upon Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky, 
it will then move with such an ample volume, and 
will promise such immediate and present good, that 
it will be welcomed, rather than obstructed. It is 
the movement in masses of white labor into Missouri 
which has excited the inquiry, whether black labor 
may not be dispensed with; and the same thing will 
happen elsewhere. It is possible that a State may 
hold on to an inferior population, from the want of 
power to substitute anything in its place; but no 
State will resist a change for the better, which is 
offered for its acceptance. Men may lack the energy 
or the wisdom to improve their own condition, but 
it is rarely that they will resist improvements which 
come without demanding their agency. At this 
moment, even in Virginia, it is by no means certain 
that a majority would not welcome, a free immigra- 
tion, although moved by the avowed purpose of 
expelling slavery. "What the real wishes of Virginia 
are, cannot safely be concluded from the violence 



38 

and clamors of politicians. It is now evident that 
a large part of the people of Missouri are disinclined 
to slavery, desirous of being rid of it themselves, 
and not at all anxious to force it upon others. The 
appearance of pro-slavery unanimity, which Missouri 
was made to assume in 1854, 1855, and 1856, it is 
now evident, was altogether deceptive. A few noisy 
and energetic men were able to pass themselves off 
as representing the whole community, because their 
opponents, from motives more or less creditable, 
saw fit to be silent. What, it is quite certain, has 
happened in Missouri, may now be true of Virginia. 
Richmond may as little reflect the true voice of 
Virginia, as Platte county did the true voice of 
Missouri. In Richmond, slaves constitute the lead- 
ing article of merchandise, and of political capital 
slavery constitutes nearly the whole. "We must not 
mistake the humors of such a locality for the judg- 
ment of a State. 

But whether welcome or unwelcome, facilitated or 
obstructed, the movement of free emigration upon 
the northern tier of slave States will be irresistible 
when it is made ; and the period of its commence- 
ment is not remote. The free States, which have 
so far gained political power slowly, and only by 
the superior growth of their own population, will 
advance with rapid strides, as soon as they begin to 
make acquisitions from the ancient seats of slavery. 
Territorial enlargement, the traditional, and as yet 
successful, policy of the slave States, will avail them 
nothing, when, no longer able to protect their rear 
while advancing to new conquests, their losses at 
home counterbalance their gains abroad. 



39 



CHAPTEE IV. 

Slave society stationary. Impossibility of improvement of the non- 
slaveholding whites. Tendency of slavery to expel the -white race. 
Example of South Carolina. Slavery predominant in some por- 
tions of Virginia, and freedom in others. Non-slaveholding whites 
in slave countries have no capacity to become artisans and build up 
towns. Slaveholders will never give up slavery. 

There are no internal elements of change in slave 
society, when it is once established. The slaves are 
held to their existing condition by force ; the mas- 
ters are confined to old pursuits by the want of flex- 
ibility and adaptability in the character of the labor 
which they control, and upon the proceeds of which 
they subsist. The non-slaveholding whites are sunk 
into abject poverty, and must so remain, without 
means or hope of escape. " The fieh"> said General 
Marion, and in those few words he sketched the 
whole workings of slavery, "have no need of the poor, 
because they have their own slaves to do their work."* 
"Without employment and without wages, how can 
the poor whites better their condition? How can 
they form those habits of labor without which ac- 
quisition is impossible? How, in short, can they be 



*In his Essay on Population, published in 1*751, Dr. Benjamin 
Franklin says: "The negroes brought into the English sugar islands 
1 have greatly diminished the whites there; the poor are by this means 
1 deprived of employment, while a few families acquire vast estates. 
' The northern colonies, having few slaves, increase in whites." In the 
Connecticut Act of 1*7 7 4, prohibiting the importation of slaves, the 
same view is adopted, slavery being declared to be "injurious to the 
poor." 



40 

anything but what they are, sunk in the ignorance 
and indolence of savage life; obtaining the means 
of a scanty support, or of vicious indulgence, by 
hunting, or fishing, by occasional jobs, or by partici- 
pation in the pilferings of slaves ; destitute of prop- 
erty, and only permitted to occupy, as squatters, such 
waste and sterile spots as the lords of the soil aban- 
don to their use, because unprofitable for slave cul- 
tivation ? There are no elements of recuperation in 
such a class, and under such circumstances. They 
are driven off in large numbers by the pressure of 
absolute want, while those who remain cease to 
struggle with their lot, and are even made use of, by 
exciting their prejudices of race and color, as the de- 
fenders and supporters of a system of things under 
which they are the chief sufferers. It is not out of 
such materials as this, that can arise a thoughtful, 
provident, and thrifty yeomanry, which can dispute 
the ownership of the soil with those who control 
slave labor. Cheap and easily acquired as lands 
have been and still are in Southern Maryland and 
Eastern Virginia, the opportunities they offer to free 
and intelligent labor, for the acquisition of freehold 
independence and competency, have never been im- 
proved, and never will be, by the non-slaveholding 
native whites. If the planter ever yields to the farm- 
er, it must be by the infusion of new stock from Eu- 
rope, or from the ^Torth. Redemption must come 
from without. There are no elements of it within. 
Mr. Webster is reported to have said, that it was the 
part of wisdom to found government upon property. 
With less offence, he might have affirmed, that as a 
matter of fact, in any community which is civilized, 



41 

and in which private possessions are secure from vi- 
olence, property is the most commanding of the so- 
cial forces. Its dominancy is absolute and perfect, 
where no elements of personal independence exist to 
counterpoise it. Nowhere is its dominancy more 
absolute and more perfect, and at the same time more 
secure and less liable to successful attack, than in 
slave society. The want of homogeneity in the sub- 
jected classes, precludes the organization of resist- 
ance. The Austrian Emperor rules securely, because 
he can play off race against race, the Serf against the 
Magyar, the Bohemian against the Lombard ; occu- 
pying Italy with Hungarian regiments, and garrison- 
ing Vienna with Italians. Much upon the same 
principle does the slaveholder administer his princi- 
pality ; crushing the poor whites by the labor of his 
slaves, and yet having in these same poor whites a 
standing force, costing nothing to maintain it, where- 
withal to put down any attempted rebellion of the 
blacks. 

The serfdom of feudal times yielded, in Europe, 
mainly to the growth and expansion of towns, in 
which industry, uniting itself with skill, was able to 
acquire independence ; and in which there were fa- 
cilities of combining intelligence against the tyranny 
of the territorial lords. The emergence from that 
condition, of the agricultural population left to itself, 
must have been the work of vastly more difficulty 
and time. An improvement of an agricultural pop- 
ulation, from the state to which negro slavery re- 
duces it, seems almost impossible. Where the 
labors of the field are performed by feudal serfs, as 
they once were in Europe, society being divided into 

2* 



42 

proprietors and laborers, the condition of the latter 
may be gradually improved, until it rises to entire 
and substantial enfranchisement. But under the 
system of negro slavery, we have another and fright- 
fully numerous class, that of the poorer whites, who, 
being neither proprietors, nor laborers, have no posi- 
tion in the social economy. They are like the Pa- 
riahs of India. They belong to no caste. No change, 
except an entire overthrow of the existing order of 
things, can reach them. The case is hopeless. 

The mischief is not merely that labor is degraded 
and rendered dishonorable by the existence of sla- 
very. Labor is absolutely destroyed by it. The 
possibility of earning wages, with casual and unim- 
portant exceptions, does not exist. " The rich have 
no need of the poor." 

A form of society, under which the physical vigor 
of the negro is directed and controlled by the intel- 
ligence of the white man, considered simply as an 
economical system for the production of wealth, and 
without reference to the morality of enslaving one 
set of men for the benefit of another, has some obvi- 
ous advantages. But the theoretical perfection of 
such a system requires that the proportion of whites 
should be no greater than is necessary for directing 
and coercing the blacks ; and any excess of whites 
above that proportion is worse than superfluous, 
making a class of idlers, or worse than idlers, who, 
in various ways, destroy or diminish the profits of 
the industry of others. The system, in this state 
of perfection, (everything good and bad has a possi- 
ble perfection of its own,) has existed in many of 
the European colonies in South America and the 



43 

West Indies, but never in the United States. Here, 
the incongruous element of poor whites, having no 
connection with slavery, and entirely out of place 
in the machinery of slave labor, has always been 
large, and would inevitably explode the whole sys- 
tem, but for the vent for them afforded by our ample 
Territories. 

It is not intended to be said, of course, that all 
the non-slaveholding whites of the slave States are 
of the class and condition here described. The 
truth is, that although slavery may legally exist in 
every part of the slave States, it does not in fact 
exist, or only to an extent scarcely appreciable, in 
considerable portions of them. In such portions, 
we find a class corresponding, in habits and personal 
independence, with the yeomanry of the free States, 
although with less advantages of education. It is 
not in such quarters, however, where slavery does 
not exist, that we should expect to find its effects. 

A plantation requires no white people, except the 
proprietor, the overseer, possibly a physician, and 
their families.* Its economy does not require the 
hiring of labor, white, or black; and the intercourse 
of poor white neighbors with the planter is limited 
to stealing from him, and carrying on illicit trade 
in rum and other prohibited indulgences with his 
negroes. If a State could be supposed to be made 
up of continuous plantations, the white race would 
be not merely starved out, but literally squeezed 

*In Solon Robinson's account, in the American Agriculturist, of 
the rice estate upon Jehossee Island, belonging to Gov. Aiken of 
South Carolina, worked by seven hundred negroes, it is stated that 
"the overseer is the only white man on the place, besides the owner. 11 



44 

out; and just so far as the system falls short of 
this, it falls short of attaining its perfect develop- 
ment. To this point it continually tends, although 
it may never reach it. Some soils will not support 
slavery, by reason of sterility, or because they require 
methods of cultivation and modes of occupation to 
which slave labor is not adapted. Of some spots, 
free labor gets the first possession, and is able to 
hold it, either by its own strength, or because slavery 
is drawn in other directions by more powerful induce- 
ments. Commercial and manufacturing interests, 
necessitating free labor, arise also in the slave States, 
although slowly; and, so far and so fast as this 
happens, a white population finds employment and 
a legitimate position. But such a population is 
extrinsic to slavery, and forms no part of the econ- 
omy of slave labor. 

The destruction and expulsion of the white race 
are the legitimate effects of the plantation system, 
and are in fact produced by it, just in proportion as 
that system is developed. In South Carolina, in 
1850, there were 384,984 slaves to 274,563 whites, 
whereas in 1790 there were 107,094 slaves to 140,178 
whites. This advance of the black race upon the 
white has occurred in spite of the fact, that the 
western part of the State is mountainous, and not 
adapted to slavery. In nine of its twenty-nine dis- 
tricts, or counties, the whites still exceed the slaves, 
and in some of them largely. This is more than 
offset, however, by the preponderance of slaves in 
the tide-water region. In 1850, there were in some 
of those districts whites and slaves, as follows : 



45 



. Whites. Slaves. 

Beaufort - - - - - 5,947 32,279 

Charleston 25,208 54,775 

Colleton ------ 6,775 21,375 

Fairfield - 7,068 14,276 

Georgetown 2,193 18,253 

Kershaw ------ 4,681 9,578 

Sumter 9,813 23,065 

Williamsburg 3,902 8,508 



The districts of Beaufort, Colleton, and George- 
town, with 71,907 slaves, and only 14,915 whites, 
exhibit the system in an advanced stage of develop- 
ment. 

Of the total number of white persons who were 
born in South Carolina, and who were living in 
1850, only fifty-eight per cent, remained in that 
State. The balance, forty-two per cent., had been 
expelled by the slave system. 

In 1850, the slaves outnumbered the whites in 
Mississippi, and they did so in Louisiana, outside 
of New Orleans. They will soon do so in Alabama. 

In 1850, the slaves outnumbered the whites in 
forty- three of the one hundred and thirty-seven 
counties of Virginia, and largely in the following 
ones: 

Whites. Slaves. 

Amelia 2,785 6,819 

Brunswick 4,885 8,456 

Buckingham 5,426 8,161 

Caroline ------ 6,891 10,661 

Charlotte 4,615 8,988 

Cumberland 3,082 6,329 

Essex - 3,075 6,762 



46 

Greenville 1,731 3,785 . 

King William 2,701 5,731 

Louisa 6,423 9,864 

Nottoway 2,234 6,050 

Powhatan ------ 2,513 5,282 

Prince Edward - - - - 4,177 7,192 

Prince George - - - - 2,670 4,408 

Sussex - 3,086 5,992 

It is by observing tlie progress of population in 
such counties that we perceive the true working 
of slavery. It would be entirely deceptive to view 
Virginia as a whole, because free labor predominates 
in large portions of it, slavery existing only in name, 
as in the following counties : 

Whites. Slaves. 

Barbour 8,670 113 

Boone - 3,054 183 

Braxton 4,123 89 

Brooke 4,923 31 

Cabell - - 5,902 389 

Carroll 5,726 154 

Doddridge 2,718 31 

Forsyth 3,780 156 

Floyd 6,001 443 

Gilmer 3,403 72 

Grayson - - - • - - - 6,142 499 

Hancock 4,040 3 

Harrison 11,213 488 

Highland 3,837 364 

Jackson ------- 6,480 53 

Lewis- - - - - - 9,620 368 

Logan - - 3,533 87 



47 

Marion - 10,439 94 

Marshall 10,050 49 

Mercer 4,018 177 

Monongalia 12,092 176 

Morgan 3,431 123 

Nicholas 3,889 73 

Ohio 17,612 164 

Pendleton ------ 5,443 322 

Pocahontas 3,303 267 

Preston ^ - - 11,562 87 

Raleigh 1,729 23 

Randolph 5,003 201 

Ritchie 3,886 16 

Scott 9,322 473 

Taylor - - 5,130 168 

Tyler 5,456 38 

Wayne 4,564 189 

Wetzel 4,261 17 

Wirt -------- 3,319 32 

Wood 9,008 373 

Wyoming 1,583 61 

Into these Western Virginia counties slavery has 
not penetrated, being repelled, in some instances, 
perhaps, by their disagreeable proximity to free 
States, but mainly because of the superior attraction 
of the cotton and sugar regions of the Southwest. 
We have thus a free Virginia, as well as a slave 
Virginia, and it is exclusively in this latter that we 
are to look for the working and results of slavery. 

If there is little hope that in an agricultural com- 
munity, in which the slave system is established, the 
mass of the white population can be advanced to a 



48 

position of competence and independence ; there is 
quite as little hope of the growth, from any elements 
which such a population affords, of towns, of the 
mechanic arts, or of manufacturing and commer- 
cial interests. In the depths of their degradation, 
there are neither the means, nor the hope, nor scarce- 
ly the desire, of improvement. Capacity of labor, 
which is everywhere only the resnlt of use and habit, 
is not called into existence, and a savage and indo- 
lent contentment with the coarsest subsistence extin- 
guishes all desire of advancement. Cuba, with a 
large non-slaveholding white population, relies upon 
Europe and the Northern United States for engi- 
neers, machinists, and ordinary mechanics, and upon 
Spain for even petty shopkeepers. The " Sandhillers ' ' 
of South Carolina, and the " Crackers" of Georgia, 
as the poor whites of those States are familiarly 
called, never become mechanics, or artisans, or 
traders. Throughout the South, towns are built up 
only by Northern and European immigration, and 
without it there would be scarcely any manifestation 
of civilization. Mills, railroads, cotton presses, sugar 
boilers, and steamboats, are mainly indebted for 
their existence in the Southern States to intelligence 
aud muscle trained in free communities. 

In the New Orleans Commercial Bulletin, of April 
18, 1857, is a statement of the laying out of the new 
town of Brash ear, on Berwick Bay, on a new route 
of travel between New Orleans and Galveston, being 
by railroad from New Orleans to Brashear, and 
thence by steamboat through Berwick Bay and the 
Gulf of Mexico to Galveston. The Bulletin says : 

"No more favorable site could have been selected 



49 

< for a town, which in a few years may become a 
' flourishing city. It was a short work to survey the 

* land and lay it off into lots. The peculiar attrac- 
6 tion of the place was at once appreciated; a por- 

< tion of the lots have been put up at auction, and 
6 large prices have been realized. We have taken 
c the following memorandum from the auctioneer's 
i sale book: 

"First day— 99 lots— amounting to $28,695 
Second" 167 " " 22,680 

"Nearly the whole of this property has been sold 
' to mechanics, artisans, and storekeepers. The 
i larger number will commence improvements forth- 
' with, and in one year we shall have a flourishing 

* town immediately on our Gulf shore. 

"The size of the lots average fifty feet by one 
1 hundred feet The lowest price lot brought seven- 
' ty-five dollars, and the highest five hundred and 
c sixty dollars. 

"A feature or two in this sale is worthy of notice. 
' The purcJmsers, with a few exceptions, not exceeding 
'Jive or six, are naturalized citizens, principally Germans, 

* with some Spaniards and Frenchmen, and a few Irish, 
i Another noticeable fact is, that it seems there is 
' no scarcity of money among them ; for several of 
' them preferred paying the whole of the purchase- 
' money in cash, rather than avail themselves of the 
' credit allowed in the terms of sale." 

These "mechanics, artisans, and storekeepers," who 
"appreciated" the advantages of Brashear, and who 
had the means wherewithal to buy and pay for lots 
in it, were, it seems, scarcely any of them native white 
citizens of Louisiana. At that point, so remote from 
the free States, it is not easy to see of what materials 
the new town could have been constituted, but for 
the fortunate presence of Europeans, "principally 
Germans" who stood ready, with well-filled pockets 



50 

and skillful hands, to lay the foundations of a "flour- 
ishing city:' Long may it "flourish" a light amid 
surrounding darkness, and a standing witness of the 
thrift and vigor of free labor. 

This town of Brashear is no solitary instance. It 
is only a particular illustration of what is necessarily 
and universally true of communities in which negro 
slavery exists to a controlling extent. If it is not 
true of the entire area of the slave States of this 
Union, it is because considerable portions of them 
are substantially free from that institution. 

In any aspect of the case, it is not easy to see by 
what steps and processes a country upon which this 
institution is thoroughly fastened, can ever be rid of 
it, except by external pressure. There is no vital 
stamina left, to throw off the disease. Black labor 
cannot be supplanted in agriculture by a white labor, 
the efficiency of which has been destroyed ; nor can 
such white labor be diverted to other pursuits, re- 
quiring an intelligence and training which it does 
not possess, and can scarcely acquire. 

While the slaves are held to their position by 
physical force, and the poor whites are held to theirs 
by a coercion from which escape is scarcely more 
easy; what prospect is there that the slaveholders 
will voluntarily give up a system which affords them 
subsistence without labor, and every species of in- 
dulgence which they are capable of appreciating, 
and which, above all, gorges to the full that pride 
and lust of dominion, which is the strongest social 
passion in unregenerate man? "What examples of 
such self-denial are afforded in the history of the 
world ? 



51 

It is impossible and idle to persuade the slave- 
holder that his country, and especially himself as a 
land proprietor, would be made more prosperous 
and wealthy by the abandonment of his system ; im- 
possible, because his opinions are controlled by his 
inclinations; idle, because he desires no other pros- 
perity and no other wealth than that which he al- 
ready possesses. The ideas and notions of one form 
of society are powerless, when attempted to be 
brought to bear upon another. Where land and 
negroes are the only descriptions of property, their 
possessors have all that is substantial in wealth, 
either in secure subsistence, or in pre-eminence over 
others, and they disdain modes of luxury and accu- 
mulation to which they are not accustomed. If 
they do not possess palaces, or pictures, or libraries, 
or statuary, they do not desire them, and they are, 
at the worst, only in the same predicament, in these 
respects, with their peers in the governing class to 
which they belong. The wealth of cities seems to 
them imaginary, and the indulgences of a high civil- 
ization, illusive, and even contemptible. If their 
disdain is barbarous, it is not flatly irrational, and it 
has a touch of manly pride and vigor in it. He is a 
bold man who will recommend a radical change in 
the structure of society to those who occupy the 
most eligible position in it, and by means of it ; and 
he is a foolish man who expects such a recommend- 
ation to be adopted. Mormonism may be a ruinous 
system, but no clearness of demonstration that it is 
so, will reconcile the Elders to a change. Their 
present status has advantages which are known, pos- 
itive, and suited to their habits, while it is quite 



52 

uncertain what it would be under a new organization 
of things. In like manner, the slaveholders are well 
content to be what their fathers were, the masters 
of their plantations, and the scarcely less absolute 
masters of the political communities in which they 
live. If the structure of their society is marked by 
comparative rudeness and destitution, they will not 
hazard a secure pre-eminence, for the sake of im- 
provements which are unappreciated, unwelcome, 
and for themselves personally, uncertain. 

Chancellor Harper, in his oration delivered in 
1838, before the South Carolina Society for the ad- 
vancement of learning, places foremost among the 
reasons why the people of that State will never 
abandon slavery, that it would be contrary to " our 
' [their] proudest and most deeply-cherished feelings, 
i which others, if they will, may call prejudices." In the 
learned Chancellor's order of enumeration, these 
" proud and deeply-cherished feelings" are first; their 
"essential interests" are next; and last of all, is a be- 
nevolent regard for the negro. An acting Governor 
of Kansas (Mr. Stanton) has recently seen fit to de- 
clare, at a public meeting in the town of Lawrence, 
in that Territory, that he " loved" the institution of 
slavery, and that he would vote to establish it there 
because he " loved" it. He did not aver a belief that 
the institution would be for the benefit of the Terri- 
tory. If he cherishes such a belief, which is not 
certain, he did not set it up, but rested himself upon 
the declaration that he u loved" slavery; a declara- 
tion, of which we may at least admire the ingenuous 
simplicity. Mr. Stanton is a true son of Eastern 



53 

Virginia. He "loves" slavery, and sentiment is not 
to be combated by reason. 

Is slavery, then, so monstrous and unheard-of a 
thing, so new in the history of the world, and so re- 
pugnant to all natural impulses, that it cannot pos- 
sibly continue ? Few will arrive at this conclusion, 
who consider what mankind really are and have 
been, and not what they ought to be and may be. 
If the normal condition of the race be judged from 
its actual history in all places and times, slavery, in 
some form, is not repugnant to it, but agreeable to 
it. As polygamy is more common than the reverse, 
so is slavery more common than freedom. It is nat- 
ural that the strong should subject the weak. Idle- 
ness is more pleasing than labor; lust, than conti- 
nence ; self-will, than submission to restraint. Men 
are prone, not to do good, but to do evil. Slave- 
holding accords with natural passions. Where just- 
ice, benevolence, and enlightend self-interest, are 
not the governing forces in society, slavery will 
exist; and so far, such forces have controlled only a 
small minority of mankind. That high civilization, 
in the midst of which only is true freedom a possi- 
bility, has been a rare product, and one of slow 
growth. Slavery is the rule. Freedom is the excep- 
tion. Of the two conditions of society in this coun- 
try, that which exists in New England, and that 
which exists in South Carolina ; it is the last which 
might claim to be the most permanent, tried by the 
standard of conformity to the practices of men in 
all past times. 

What foundation is there, finally, in experience, 
or philosophy, for that dreamy, half-expressed opti- 



54 

mism, wherewithal men persuade themselves that 
disorders will somehow mend, that evils will disap- 
pear, and that what is good will supplant what is 
mischievous? Doubtless, there is a continual move- 
ment in human affairs, but how often, alas! from 
bad to worse. Weeds thrive luxuriantly without 
culture, while the useful fruits of the earth are not 
always perfected with the utmost vigilance of the 
husbandman. In all things, the good is laboriously 
maintained, while evils rush in with a flood. To 
fall is easy; to ascend, difficult. Like a rower 
against an adverse tide, man makes slow progress 
with the utmost effort, while, relaxing but for a 
moment, he is carried swiftly backwards. Diseases 
end, but, if of vital parts, rarely except by death. 
Everything moves forward to its proper consumma- 
tion. Evil does not become good, but marches to 
its own fate. 



CHAPTEE V. 

Comparative growth of Northern and Southern Maryland. Tenacity 
of slavery in the southern counties. Advantageous position of 
Maryland. Descriptions of Eastern and Western Shores. Slave- 
holders take the best soils. Baltimore not likely to move actively 
for the abolition of slavery. The growth of the city of Washing- 
ton favorable to the removal of slavery from the southern counties 
of Maryland. 

Following is a statement of the white and slave 
population of the counties of Maryland bordering 
upon Pennsylvania, and of the remaining counties, 
in 1790 and 1850: 



55 



1790. 
Whites. Slaves. 



Border counties - - - 97,664 19,041 
Remaining counties- - 107,754 84,303 

1850. 

Border counties - - - 305,282 18,430 
Remaining counties- - 112,661 72,938 

Of this great increase of whites in the border 
counties, the larger part is due to the growth of the 
city of Baltimore; the county of Baltimore, which 
includes the city, having advanced, in the number 
of whites, from 30,878 to 174,853, besides contribu- 
ting some portion of the eighteen thousand whites 
in the new county of Carroll. The per centage of 
increase, however, of the whites in the other border 
counties, is large. 

On the mere aggregates of whites and slaves in 
Maryland at each successive census, one might base 
the conclusion that slavery would be of short dura- 
tion in that State, and possibly the more compre- 
hensive conclusion, that there is a general tendency 
in slavery everywhere to die out and disappear. 
Such conclusions would be plausible, and the more 
likely to be accepted, because agreeable in them- 
selves, and calculated to relieve men from the 
unpleasant idea that they have work and duties to 
perform. If this evil will disappear of itself, why 
suffer our ease to be disturbed by it ? 

"When we examine more closely, and separate the 
aggregates of population in Maryland into the parts 
of which they are composed, we find evidence, not 
of the evanescence of slavery, but of its wonderful 
tenacity of life; and it becomes manifest, that with- 



56 

out the introduction of some new power, the epoch 
of freedom in that State would still be indefinitely 
remote. Absolute immobility is never found in 
human affairs. Population, manners, institutions, 
are all subject to the great law of change. But in 
what part of the world shall we find so near an 
approach to a fixed and stationary position, as in the 
slaveholding region of Maryland, during the last two 
generations, and indeed during the last century, its 
condition in 1790 not having been materially differ- 
ent from what it was anterior to the Revolution? 
In truth, it has displayed a capacity of resisting 
innovation, quite equal to that of China, for even in 
the Flowery Kingdom there are reformers and new 
sects. India, with its castes, is not more stable. No 
part of Christian Europe has escaped vast changes, 
while Southern Maryland has remained the same. 
Here, if anywhere, might one, wearied with new 
things and new ideas, sit himself down with the 
contented assurance that old habits would never be 
broken in upon by new fashions, and that age would 
be solaced by the same society familiar to youth 
and manhood. From the loop-holes of this chosen 
retreat, one might look out upon a busy, moving, 
changeful world, wuth the same tranquil emotions 
which the poet ascribes to the landsman contempla- 
ting the perils of the mariner, and to the spectator 
securely watching the shifting fortunes of battle — 

" How sweet to stand, when tempests tear the main, 
On the firm cliff, and mark the seaman's toil ! 
Not that others' danger soothes the soul, 
But from such toil how sweet to feel secure ! 
How sweet, at distance from th* strife, to view 
Contending hosts, and hear the clash of war." 



57 

Assuming the area of Maryland to be correctly 
stated in the compendium of the census of 1850, and 
taking the proportional areas of the counties from 
the statements in Lippincott's Gazetteer, the area of 
the counties bordering on Pennsylvania is 4,474 
square miles, while the area of the remaining, or 
southern counties, is 6,650 square miles. 

Of the southern counties, distinguishing those 
upon the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay from 
those on the western shore, we have the following 
results : 

Eastern Shore Counties. 

Area in square miles 3,031 

Whites in 1850 56,169 Whites in 1790 48,048 

Slaves in 1850 24,345 Slaves in 1790 33,177 

Free colored in 1850 19,359 

Western Shore Counties. 

Area in square miles 3,619 

Whites in 1850 56,492 Whites in 1790 59,706 

in 1850 48,593 Slaves in 1790 51,126 



These southern counties upon the western shore 
of Chesapeake Bay constitute, so far as Maryland is 
concerned, the immediate vicinage of the city of 
Washington. The proportion in them of slaves to 
whites has not altered, and both have slightly dimin- 
ished, within sixty years. 

In addition to the stationary character both of the 
aggregate population of the southern counties of 
Maryland, and of the proportion of the two elements 
of whites and slaves, the reader will not fail to 
observe, also, how insignificant the whole population 
is, compared with the area. !No region on the face 
of the globe contains more admirable advantages of 



58 

climate, fertility, salubrity, and position. The east- 
ern shore fronts both upon Chesapeake Bay and 
upon the Atlantic Ocean. The western shore fronts 
upon Chesapeake Bay, while its long southern bor- 
der is washed by the majestic Potomac, which men- 
of-war can ascend more than one hundred miles 
from the bay. Both shores are penetrated by numer- 
ous navigable streams, and creeks, and inlets, making 
an aggregate of water line superior to that of any 
State in the Union. Proximity and easiness of 
access to New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, 
on the north, and the steady growth of "Washington 
on the south, afford the best markets, and ought to 
stimulate agriculture to its highest perfection. One 
would have supposed that the National Capital would 
have attracted to its neighborhood a dense and 
wealthy population; that great roads leading from 
it in all directions would have been dotted with 
villas and villages; that it would have been, like 
Paris, the point of the display and sale of the cost- 
liest works of art ; that skillful workmen would have 
filled its wide-spreading suburbs; and that every 
eligible eminence within an easy ride would have 
been crowned with the residences of men of compe- 
tent fortune and cultivated tastes, seeking nearness 
to the libraries, the monuments, the society, the 
luxury, and the stirring intellect, of the political 
centre of a great nation. These southern counties 
of Maryland, thus stimulated to advancement, are 
among the oldest settled portions of the United 
States. They embrace Annapolis, which received 
its city charter in 1708, which was considered a suit- 
able place for the sitting of Congress under the Con- 



59 

federation, and which yet contains numerous archi- 
tectural monuments of ante-revolutionary wealth 
and taste. It is a region full of historical interest, 
m its localities, its traditions, and its distinguished 
lames. 

The eastern shore is far removed from the great 
lines of travel. A picture of the baronial magnifi- 
cence of one of its great proprietors, drawn by his 
escaped bondman, Frederick Douglass, is familiar 
to the reading public. With that exception, very 
little is popularly known of that isolated region, 
beyond its position on the map. Yet, undoubtedly, 
its scenery is as attractive as its position ; and while 
large portions of its soil were naturally fertile, the 
remainder is easily reclaimable by the processes 
familiar to agriculture conducted by free labor. 

A correspondent of the New York Independent 
says : 

"Any one who will take the trouble to notice its 

< location on the map, cannot fail to perceive that, in 

< respect to its geographical position, it is unequalled 
' by any other part of the Union. The ocean on one 
' side, and the largest and most beautiful bay in the 
' world on the other, affords at all seasons a safe, 
' cheap, and speedy intercourse, with all places 
4 desired. 

''The bold waters of the bay, or ocean, abounding 
' with the finest fish and oysters, and some of them 

< with wild fowl of flavor and excellence unequalled 
' elsewhere, are at every man's door, or within the 
' distance of a few miles. 

"In addition to all other advantages, man is favor- 
' ed here by the smiles of a genial climate. He has 

< to endure neither the austerities of a Northern 

< winter, nor the debilitating effects of a meridian 
' summer. 



60 

"One is ready to suppose such a region to be 
\ thickly populated with thriving and wealthy inhal> 
' itants. On the contrary, these are just the lands 
' for the poor farmers of New England to purchase. 
' Maryland is no more than half settled." 

The same writer quotes the following description 
from a report, published under authority of the 
State: 

"Its scenery, though deprived of the grandeur of 

< mountains, is more than compensated in beauty 
6 by its unrivalled water prospects. The rivers pen- 
1 etrate far up the country, winding gracefully from 
' farm to farm, which seem to seek the embrace of 

< the clear blue waters, in whose bosom they lie. 

< The fresh streams which are bordered by the large 

< marshes in some seasons of the year present scenes 
4 of ravishing beauty. 

" On many of the rivers, there are large deposits 

< of Indian shell banks, capable of affording many 
* millions of bushels of the purest lime. It has 

< numerous deposits of very rich shell and green- 

< sand marl. In some of these counties, the green- 

< sand marl contains a large per centage of gypsum. 
6 In many large districts of country, shell marls, 

< containing from forty to seventy-six per cent, of 
' air-slaked" lime, can be obtained with the greatest 

< facility, being sometimes within a few feet of the 

< surface, sometimes even cropping out upon it. 

< The shores of the bay, and its numerous creeks 
and rivers, afford large quantities of sea-weecl, a 
most excellent and valuable manure. Where mag- 
nesia or guano is required, the Chesapeake and 
Delaware canal, and the proximity of Baltimore 
market, afford every facility for a cheap supply." 

Lippineotis Gazetteer (1855) says : 
"The soil of the eastern shore, and some of the 
counties of the western, is a mixture of sand and 
clay, which, though not of the most fertile char- 



61 

' acter, is 'easily improved, and by the aid of manure, 
' which it possesses at hancWn its extensive beds of 
' marl, well repays cultivation. * * * * * * 
' The soil receives improvement easily, is readily 
i cultivated, and the farmers emigrating from the 
' rougher soils of the North, find their labors here 
' much diminished." 

The western shore possesses a greater proportion 
than the eastern, of lands originally fertile, and of 
lands capable of resisting the effects of cropping 
without manuring. This would be proved, inde- 
pendently of descriptive accounts, by the greater 
proportion of its slave population in early times, and 
the greater steadiness with which that population has 
been maintained. The philosopher, guided by the 
known and fixed relations of comparative anatomy, 
can determine from a tooth, or a single bone, the 
form, digestive organs, and habits, of the animal to 
which it belonged. The relations of slavery to the 
character and value of land, to the accumulation of 
capital, and to advance of population, are equally 
certain and equally known, and we may infer the 
one from the other with equal safety. The tooth of 
the ox does not more unmistakably imply a digest- 
ive apparatus adapted to the herbage upon which he 
feeds, than do the price of land, the amassed capital, 
and the density of population, in Massachusetts, imply 
the system of free labor. The negro slave indicates 
infallibly a rich soil. He can exist nowhere else, his 
function in political economy being to destroy every- 
thing which is destructible, and to improve nothing. 
The valley of the Nile could sustain him in undimin- 
^shed numbers, the bounty of nature which enriches 
it, being annual and perennial. But wherever the 



62 

soil is exhaustible, he will exhaust it. "With the 
census enumerations at various periods, wherever 
slavery has been permitted by law in the United 
States, the original fertility of different districts can 
be deduced from the numbers of slaves, as accurately 
as from the best-considered reports. The perma- 
nency of this fertility may be deduced from the per- 
manency of the slave population, but with less accu- 
racy, it being a disturbing element in the calculation, 
that slaves are in some places maintained chiefly 
with reference to breeding, and scarcely at all with 
reference to the profits of their labor. The slave- 
holder takes the best lands, first, because he has the 
means to command his choice, and next, because 
none but the best lands can bear the burdens he im- 
poses upon them. His mission being, not to ame- 
liorate, but to devastate, he never goes upon land 
which needs improvement in order to be made 
profitable, but devolves upon free labor the necessity 
both of reclaiming natural wastes and of restoring 
fields blasted by servile cultivation. It may serve 
for consolation, however, to know that it is not a 
new thing under the sun, that industry and thrift 
are made to bear the burden, not only of the wants 
and the misfortunes, but of the follies, the waste, 
and the vices of mankind. 

The southern counties of Maryland on the west- 
ern shore, on the great line of travel between the 
North and South, and environing the National 
Capital, should be familiarly known to large num- 
bers of persons in all parts of the United States, but 
they hardly are so, with the exception of what falls 
under the eye of. the passenger in the rail-cars be- 



63 

tween "Washington and Baltimore. The carriage 
roads out of Washington are not numerous, and 
such of them as are tolerable, are blocked by toll- 
gates. Silver Spring, the rural retreat of a distin- 
guished man, six miles from the city, is only access- 
ible, as a cloud of witnesses can attest, by submitting 
twice to this sort of tax. Credible authorities affirm 
that Marlboro', the shire town of Prince George's 
county, the county incorporated in 1695, and itself 
of the age of the hero of Queen Anne's time whose 
name it bears, is secluded, not so much by the 
eighteen miles of distance which separate it from 
Washington, as by the twenty gates (not toll-gates, 
however) which span the way, and effectually 
check all prying curiosity. In truth, it is only with 
difficulty that one could acquire such a personal 
knowledge of the surrounding country, in any di- 
rection, as would contradict the impressions of its 
character, derived from the uncouth negroes and 
barbarous vehicles by which its products are con- 
veyed to the markets of Washington. 

The maximum number of slaves attained in Mary- 
land was in 1810, the course of that species of popu- 
lation having been as follows : 

Years. Number of slaves. 

1790 103,036 

1800 105,635 

1810 111,502 

1820 107,397 

1830 102,994 

1840 89,737 

1850 90,368 



64 

It is not satisfactory to observe that the number 
increased, although only slightly, from 1840 to 
1850. 

The political and social tone of the Southern por- 
tion of Maryland, as might be inferred from its his- 
tory and present position, is as thoroughly pro-sla- 
very as that of any portion of the Union. The in- 
stitution of slavery is clung to with all the tenacity 
of pride and hereditary habit, and will only succumb 
to a resistless pressure from without. To what else 
than the social influences of this institution, in its 
fullest vigor, can we ascribe the singular confusion 
of the intellect of the venerable Chief Justice of the 
Supreme Court of the United States, in his exposi- 
tion of law and history, made under pretext of de- 
ciding the case of Dred Scott. [Appendix B.] 

It is well known that the apportionment of repre- 
sentation in the Legislature of Maryland dwarfs the 
city of Baltimore in comparison with the agricul- 
tural counties, and secures to the slaveholders the 
means of holding in check any legislative movement 
in favor of free labor, which might originate in their 
commercial emporium. There is no appearance, as 
yet, however, of any such movement, nor does one 
seem to be probable in the immediate future. The 
position of Baltimore, in this respect, differs radically 
from that of St. Louis. The commercial develop- 
ment and future greatness of St. Louis depend largely 
upon the prosperity of the immense territories of 
Missouri and Kansas ; and it becomes, therefore, the 
urgent interest of St. Louis that those territories 
should be exempted from slavery. This interest is 
manifest to any comprehension, and addresses itself 



65 

so powerfully to the instincts of trade, and to the 
calculations of property-holders, as to override all 
prejudices and political considerations. The com- 
merce of Baltimore, on the other hand, has so wide 
a range as to be little affected, relatively, by the con- 
dition of the southern counties of Maryland. Their 
area is only one-tenth of that of Missouri, and the 
proportion which they contribute to the trade of 
Baltimore is altogether insignificant, compared with 
the proportion contributed by Missouri to the trade 
of St. Louis. With no pressing interest, therefore, 
to move actively for the removal of slavery from 
Maryland, Baltimore is operated upon by influences 
adverse to an agitation of the subject, much stronger 
than those which are found sufficient to control the 
commercial classes elsewhere. "While anti-slavery 
ideas, and even free-soil ideas, find so little favor 
in Philadelphia and New York, how can they be 
expected to flourish in Baltimore ? 

While, however, there is no reason to suppose 
that the great and growing power of the white pop- 
ulation of Baltimore will be exerted, through legis- 
lative agencies, for the extinction of slavery in 
Maryland ; it acts in that direction by its aggregation 
of free-labor interests, and by holding in commercial 
capital a counterpoise to the wealth of the slavehold- 
ers. Whatever passions may rage, Baltimore binds 
Maryland firmly to the Union. The scheme of a 
Southern Confederacy, with Charleston for its com- 
mercial emporium, might be made acceptable to the 
planters of Maryland, but could never be made so 
to the merchants of Baltimore. The Union as it is, 
is the foundation of their prosperity, and they will 



66 

ever be found among its foremost and stanehest 
supporters. 

While all the old causes tending to produce the 
extinction of slavery in Maryland will continue to 
operate hereafter with undiminished force, new ones 
are coming into play, in the impending movement 
of the Northern population towards the South, and 
in the growth of the city of Washington. The 
location of the Federal Capital on the banks of the 
Potomac, in the heart of what was then the largest 
slaveholding region in the country, embracing South- 
ern Maryland and Eastern Virginia, and in which 
the ascendency of the slave interest remains, in fact, 
unshaken to this day, has wonderfully served to 
increase the control of the slave States over the 
Federal Government. The social influences of the 
National Capital have been overwhelmingly on the 
side of slavery ; and until recently, the advocacy of 
the interests of free labor has been as effectually 
interdicted there, as in Richmond, or Charleston. 
An address delivered in 1856, in opposition to slave- 
ry, is stated to have been the first thing of that kind 
ever attempted in Washington, outside of the halls 
of Congress. It seems likely now to happen, after 
the lapse of two generations, that the free States are 
to receive some compensating benefits from the posi- 
tion of the National Capital. The very fact that it 
is located in a region abounding in slaves, makes it 
a point from which influences of opinion and inter- 
est, one or both, may be brought to bear immediately 
against the strongholds of slavery; and such influ- 
ences are sure to be exerted by Washington, so 
soon as its growth enables it to impress itself upon 



67 

the surrounding country, instead of being merely 
the reflection of that surrounding country, as it 
necessarily was during the feebleness of its infancy. 
That time has arrived. Washington is now a large 
and rapidly-thriving city. Its inhabitants will num- 
ber one hundred thousand at the next census, or not 
long afterwards. The existence of so large an urban 
population calls for, and will create, a free-labor 
interest within a wide circle around it, because it is 
only that kind of labor which can and will supply 
its dairy, fruit, and other market wants. It is impos- 
sible that the environs of a great city should consist 
of plantations worked by slaves. The planter must 
give way to the farmer and the gardener. Alreadj 7 , 
at the commencement of the expansion of Washing- 
ton, this process of substitution is distinctly observ- 
able in the immediately-adjoining portions of Vir- 
ginia and Maryland, and will go on at an accelerated 
pace, as free labor feels the attractions of congenial 
neighborhoods added to those of good markets. 

It is settled, in the judgment of men, by the 
immense enlargements which are now being given 
to the public edifices in Washington, that it is to be 
the seat of the Government of the Confederation for 
an indefinite period ; and both those who prognosti- 
cate, and those who threaten, the overthrow of the 
Confederation, find every year their hearers less and 
less credulous and less and less alarmed. It is seen, 
that if the Union is wrecked upon a question of 
slavery, the line of separation will not be that of 
Mason and Dixon, or even that of the Potomac, but 
much farther to the south. It is seen, that the devo- 
tion of Maryland to the Union is proof against all 



68 

arts and all attempts; that free-labor institutions, 
already predominant on the Ohio, will soon control 
both its banks throughout its whole course; that 
the political unity of the entire region upon the 
waters of the Chesapeake Bay is a geographical 
necessity ; that the tendency of slavery towards the 
Gulf of Mexico, long manifest, must receive a mark- 
ed impetus during the present generation ; and that, 
in fine, whatever disruptions may be possible at 
remote points, a powerful Confederation will remain, 
from the centre of which Washington would not be 
so inconveniently distant as to be unfitted for the 
seat of its Government. These and other consider- 
ations tending to inspire confidence in the stability 
of the political status of Washington, in connection 
with the general growth and prosperity of the coun- 
try, in which its position secures its participation, 
have swollen its population, and wealth, and busi- 
ness activity, greatly, during a few years past, and 
will still continue effective in the same direction. 

As a small city, Washington would take the com- 
plexion of its opinions from the adjoining country, 
and from the resident officials of the Federal Gov- 
ernment. As a large city, Washington must have 
a character of its own, based upon its own interests, 
and upon the cast and training of its own population, 
and this character must necessarily be anti-slavery. 
The development of mechanical, manufacturing, and 
commercial pursuits, will draw immigration to it 
from the free States and from Europe, because it is 
not in slave countries that artisans and merchants 
are reared. The interests of Washington are on the 
same side with the natural opinions of those who 



69 

will, constitute the majority of its inhabitants. If 
the density of population in the southern counties 
of Maryland on the western shore, which would re- 
sult from the removal of slavery, be computed at 
even so little as one hundred to the square mile, 
which is short of the probable truth, the present 
population would be tripled, the absolute addition 
of numbers being one-fourth of a million, while the 
increase of wealth and activity would be even 
greater. With an equal advancement in the adja- 
cent counties of Virginia, Washington would be the 
centre of a numerous and flourishing population, 
and would enjoy a measure of prosperity which 
would be independent of all possible political 
changes. An appeal to the interests of the indus- 
trial classes and of the property-holders of Washing- 
ton, so direct, obvious, and urgent, will produce its 
effect in due time ; earlier if the slavery propaganda 
loses the control of Government, but, sooner or later, 
in spite of all obstacles and of all counter influences. 
In all aspects, and from all motives, the free States 
should view the growth of Washington with compla- 
cency. We were carried to the banks of the Poto- 
mac against our will. Let us hold them with a 
grasp of iron. The National Capital bears the name 
of the Father of his Country, and all its traditions 
connect it with the earlier and purer days of the Re- 
public. We have enriched it with our treasures and 
embellished it with our arts. It is in itself the most 
distinct and most palpable of the symbols of our 
national power and unity. 

u Hie illius arma; 
Hie currusfuit." 



70 

Whatever changes may occur in the boundaries 
of our France, as yet enlarging, but hereafter, per- 
haps, to be diminished, we shall preserve the con- 
tinuity of our political existence, so long as we re- 
main masters of Paris. Let us persist in planting 
there our ideas, more indestructible than political 
forms. Let us endow it with free roads and free 
schools, with an unsparing munificence, and make 
it, in all its institutions and surroundings and influ- 
ences, a fit expression of the intellect and heart and 
tastes of a cultivated and free people. 

It was charged upon Gen. Washington, by the 
rudeness of contemporaneous jealousy, that he was 
influenced to his efforts in favor of the selection of 
the site of the National Capital, by the desire of 
augmenting the value of his own estates on the oppo- 
site side of the Potomac. Expectations of that kind 
were doubtless indulged in by all the adjacent pro- 
prietors, but although apparently well founded, their 
realization has been slow, and has only now just 
commenced, after the lapse of nearly seventy years. 
It will progress, but only so fast and so far as the 
system of servile labor yields to a better one ; and 
this will happen, not by the co-operation, but in 
spite of the utmost efforts and resistance of those 
who will be benefited by the change. Slavery will 
die out in Southern Maryland, not by convincing 
land proprietors that it is their interest to get rid 
of it, but because a new system and new men will 
force their way by sheer strength. Viewed as a 
whole, and without reference to individual excep- 
tions, slaveholding is an incurable disorder. It is 
to be treated only by excision. The remedy is not 



71 

reformation, but expulsion. As inferior races dis- 
appear before superior ones, so, of populations of 
the same stock, must that which has been degraded 
and debauched by slavery, give room to that which 
has been elevated by enlightened freedom. 

Stubbornly as slavery has held its ground in 
Southern Maryland, and stubbornly as it will still 
contest the field; it must succumb at last to the 
pressure from the North, to the arts and civilization 
concentrated at Baltimore, and to the influences 
which will radiate from the National Capital. The 
space which it occupies is not large, and the popu- 
lation which it controls is insignificant. The emi- 
gration of a single year, from New England alone, 
would suffice to overwhelm it. 

There is nothing in the general tone of political 
and social opinions in Maryland, including Balti- 
more and the northern counties, to repel the people 
of the free States. The fanaticism of the region on 
the lower Potomac is virulent, but there is as little 
sympathy between Richmond, (Va.,) or Charleston, 
(S. C.,) and Baltimore, as between New York and 
Virginia. The dominant interests in Maryland, 
both of wealth and numbers, are disconnected with 
slavery. The State is commercial, vigorous, and 
progressive; the history of its works of improve- 
ment displays a combination of public spirit and 
public virtue, to which there is nothing equal in the 
annals of American enterprise. The connection of 
the Hudson river with Lake Erie was indicated and 
made easy by nature, while the frowning Alleghanies 
seemed to forbid and render impossible the union 
of the Ohio and Chesapeake Bay. The sums ex- 



ponded in achieving this work, unsuccessfully upon 
the Chesapeake and Ohio canal, but with a tiual 
triumph in the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, seem 
incredible, in contrast with the small territory and 
population of Maryland. The tirst repulse, with a 
» loss : seven millions of dollars, only seemed 
to stimulate the effort which resulted in final victory. 
S rates have displayed public spirit, but no 
State has displayed a public virtue comparable to 
that of Maryland, in submitting to enormous U - 
to meet honestly the cone a of enormous 

losses. If her enterprise has been wonderful, the 
civic courage with which she has encountered finan- 
cial disas! - still more admirable. Her honors 
and her prosperity have roieally earned. 

May their shade- - . be less. 



CHAPTER VI 

Incr: is IhoBbfi : 

. Texas in II ?id in the cx- 

treme South. Xnrcber Fa - over 
■which t. 

Since 1810, the augmentation : slaves in the 

- ithern States has been by natural ina - nly. 
with exceptions too unimportant to be noticed. 
The foreign slave trade ceased in 1808. The &k - 
in Florida, who appear for the first time in 

is :i 1830, had nearly all been carried thither 



73 

from the United States, and principally after 1820. 
The slaves in Texas, who appear for the first time 
in the census of 1850, were also an offshoot from 
the stock in the United States. The importation of 
slaves from any other quarter was denounced and 
prohibited by a Convention in Texas, then a Mexi- 
can province, as early as 1833 ; and this prohibition 
was continued during its existence as an independ- 
ent Eepublic. Some slaves had been introduced 
from foreign countries prior to 1833, but the num- 
ber must have been small. Colonel Almonte, who 
was sent to Texas by Santa Anna, in 1834, upon 
a visit of observation, reported the whole number 
of slaves as amounting to eleven hundred. In 
Yoakum's History of Texas, it is affirmed that the 
actual number was three times as great. But 
whichever authority be supposed to be the most 
correct, the number brought in prior to 1833 from 
other places than the United States, must have been 
insignificant. 

Texas not having been admitted into the Union 
until 1845, the slaves carried thither prior to 1840 
do not appear in the census of that year. The ap- 
parent rate of increase of slaves in the United States 
is thus diminished below the actual rate, in the 
decade ending in 1840, while it is again . swelled 
beyond the actual rate in the decade ending in 1850, 
by the annexation of Texas. 

If it was possible to ascertain exactly the number 
of slaves in Texas in 1840, the progress of the natu- 
ral increase of the stock of slaves in the United 
States, in the successive decades, would be accu- 
rately determined. 

4 



J 11 - _L !T- 1 - " — - - 

_— • " :nir : "i _-- ■ - - - ■ 



~- - . - 

- - JZ ''IT. 

1 _ - __ - - : _^ ■ -— _i • i ~ ^ i_ _ zl- 

:_-_-. _ - _._i : n- : :i— i i : "-it ::- 



- 



■ 1_""~_ 

— _ -_ ....... 

: -r 

*_--ri - *-" >'• 



7 -i_~ - - ... • - . .. " " ' ~-~ ' 

7 ": - :_ " - \- -'-' ii- -"- '.-"- '-" ~ - :~- 

- - - - - . - - 










--r 






i -• . 



ra 

wore slaves: and on that assumption, the progress 

of the slave population in the United States, inclu- 
ding Texas, has been as follows: 

During the decade ending — r.-cmt. 

1820 - B0.57 

1830 o±12 

1840 24.48 

1850 28.56 

During- twenty years, ending — 

L830 -.'--------- 72.79 

1850 s 

The slave region consists of two divisions: one, in 
which slaves are kept principally, or largely, with 
reference to their increase, or the slave-breeding 
region: the other, in which slaves are kept wholly, 
or principally, for their labor, and whieh may be 
called the slave-working region. It these regions 
were equally salubrious, the increase of slaves would 
be greater in the slave-breeding region, from lighter 
labors, more abundant food, and better attention; 
but in truth, a portion of the slave-working region, 
on the Atlantic and Gulf eoasts, is malarious. In 
addition to this, the system of labor applied to the 
production of sugar, as actually practiced, is specially 
exhausting. The destruction of negro life in the 
rice fields of Georgia and the Carolinas. and on the 
plantations of Louisiana, is far short, indeed, of what 
has been witnessed in times past in the tropical slave 
colonies on the continent and islands ol America, 
and is still going on in Cuba, It is, however, dis- 
tinctly marked and well known. 

Being sold to go South, is the constant terror of 



77 

the : Virginia, and Maryland, and Kentucky. 

It is the established punishment of attempts to es- 
cape, and when not inflicted as a punishment, is a 
fate which they suffer frequently from the necessities, 
or avarice, of their masters. In the northern slave 
.-. they are held, ordinarily, in small numbers, 
and are under the immediate eye of owners, who are 
concerned in their well being, both by interest and 
humanity. At the South they are worked in large 
gangs, under overseers, whose reputation depends 
more upon the amount of work which can be ac- 
complished, than upon the methods, or cost of life, 
by which it is extorted. In the northern slave 
States, which are food-producing, their fare is abun- 
dant, and even unlimited, while on the cotton, suear. 
and rice plantations, it is frequently inadequate to 
the support of vigorous life. 

It would be expected, therefore, that as the pro- 
portion of slaves occupying the healthy, breeding 
latitude of Virginia, diminished, the ratio of the 
increase of the whole body of slaves would diminish ; 
and this view of the case sufficiently explains the 
difference in that respect between the twenty y 
preceding, and the twenty years following, the 
census of 1830. There would still remain, however, 
the inconsistent fact, that slaves increased more 
rapidly in the decade ending in 1850 than in the 
decade ending in 1840. Of this fact, two explana- 
tions appear probable. The first is. that the aug- 
menting value and price of negroes have caused a 
greater attention to their preservation and increase. 
The second is, that there were fewer slaves sent 
South, from Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky, in 



78 

the second decade, than in the first, and conse- 
quently fewer lost in the process of acclimation. 
The loss in that process in Louisiana has been 
stated by a respectable newspaper in New Orleans 
to be as high as twenty-five per cent. It must, at 
any rate, be considerable. The diminution in the 
number of slaves sent South in the second decade, 
as compared with the first, was, in Virginia, forty 
thousand, and in Maryland and Kentucky, about ten 
thousand in each. In aid of these suggested expla- 
nations there are other considerations, which seem 
entitled to some attention. 

The period from 1830 to 1840 was one of extraor- 
dinary movement in the slave population from one 
locality to another, and doubtless of an unusual 
number of transfers of slave ownership, resulting 
from the removal of the Indians from the Gulf 
States, and the consequent opening up of new and 
vast cotton fields. The progress of the slave popu- 
lation was as follows in the Carolinas : 

1820. 1830. 1840. 1850. 

North Carolina 205,017 245,601 245,817 288,548 

South Carolina 258,475 315,401 327,038 384,984 

In North Carolina it was absolutely stationary, 
and in South Carolina nearly so, from 1830 to 1840, 
proving that the transfer to other regions and to 
new owners must have been unusually large; and 
other things being equal, the negro is worse off in 
the hands of a purchaser, than with the families 
which have raised him. 

The period from 1830 to 1840 embraced some 
years of almost fabulous profit in cotton planting; 



79 

and when planting profits are high, the negro is 
always hard worked. 

Since 1840, the high price of slaves may be sup- 
posed to have diminished manumissions, to have 
increased the vigilance and energy with which the 
recapture of fugitives is followed up, and to have 
augmented the number of free negroes reduced to 
slavery by kidnappers. Indeed, it has led to a 
proposition being quite seriously entertained in 
Virginia, of enslaving the whole body of the free 
negroes in that State by legislative enactment. 

Upon the whole, if the ratio of increase of slaves 
during the current decade, or the next decade, falls 
as low as during the decade ending in 1840, it must 
be by the extension of the sugar culture, which is 
notoriously destructive of slave life, by the excessive 
labors of the grinding season, and by the temptation 
of occasional enormous profits. On the other hand, 
it is not to be expected that the ratio will ever be as 
high as it was prior to 1830. 

The questions must continually recur, upon what 
causes this increase of slaves in the United States 
depends, and at what point it is to stop. These 
questions are vital to the whole discussion of the 
destiny of the institution. 

A steady and large increase of population being 
constantly presented to us in the United States, the 
conclusion is natural, that such an increase is to be 
looked for everywhere, and under all circumstances. 
Upon extending our range of observation, however, 
we see that population is stationary, or receding, in 
many counties, which are not desolated by either 
war, famine, or pestilence; and it is found that the 



80 

movement of population is not necessarily advan- 
cing, but advances, recedes, or remains unchanged, 
according to certain laws, which are fixed, and not 
difficult to be discovered. The utmost possible 
population is the number which can be subsisted 
according to its habits, either by producing directly 
what it subsists upon, or by obtaining by exchange 
what it needs to subsist upon. The limit of a flock 
of sheep upon a range of a thousand acres is ten 
times greater than upon a range of one hundred 
acres. There is nothing quite so simple as that, in 
fixing the limit of a race of men, not even if it is a 
race confined to agriculture, because agriculture has 
greater or less results, as it is carried on with greater 
or less skill; and the problem complicates itself, 
and becomes quite independent of mere area, when 
it is recollected that those who produce nothing 
which they use, may yet obtain everything they 
need, if they can produce the wherewithal to com- 
mand it by exchanges. There will, however, be 
no more people in any community than can be 
employed in whatever modes of industry they may 
be fitted to, at rates of remuneration which will 
maintain them. The limit of subsistence is then 
reached, and an increase of population is an impos- 
sibility. 

How it is, that while the tendency and capacity 
of the human species to increase are strong and 
uniform, it continues, nevertheless, to adapt itself 
to a limit of subsistence which is changeable, and 
sometimes contracting, we easily see. "When popu- 
lation presses hard upon the limit of subsistence, 
marriages are less frequent and less prolific, fewer 



81 

children are raised, and people die earlier, because 
they live less comfortably. It is not necessary, in 
order to stop an advancing population, that it should 
butt itself against the dead wall of downright starva- 
tion. That sometimes happens, but it is a rough 
remedy, and not often needed. The moral and 
physical impediments, quite short of starvation, 
which restrain the expansion of population within 
proper bounds, are numerous, and ordinarily suffi- 
cient. 

All this, it may be said, is well enough, applied 
to free persons, but wholly inapplicable to slaves, 
who cannot be conceived to be under any pruden- 
tial restraints as to marriage and offspring. Our 
flock of sheep in the range is equally as little 
restrained by prudential considerations; but where 
such considerations do not exist, the limit of subsist- 
ence remains, and it is physically impossible that it 
should be passed. And if prudential considerations 
do not operate upon the slave, they do upon his 
master; and that is equally efficient, and even more 
efficient. 

The objection that a slave population will not 
keep itself within the bounds indicated by its possi- 
ble remunerating employment, is altogether differ- 
ent from that taken in the twenty years' discussion, 
in and out of the British Parliament, of the proposed 
abolition of the African slave trade; a discussion 
which exhausted the keenness and dialectic vigor of 
a whole generation 'of men. It was insisted that 
the stocks of negroes could not be kept up in the 
Colonies without annual importations; and this 
indeed was proved by the past history of those 



82 

Colonies, and of all countries in which negro slavery 
existed, saving only the United States. The oppo- 
nents of the slave trade, in maintaining that the 
stocks of negroes could be kept up by natural 
increase, made the most of the case of the United 
States as the only one in their favor. There was, 
in fact, no part of the argument which they were 
obliged to labor harder than this : that, with proper 
attention, the prolific vigor of the negro would 
vindicate itself, even under the depression of slavery. 
The precedents, with a single exception, were 
against them, and their arguments, sufficient to 
ground hope upon, rather than to carry solid con- 
viction, have not since been verified in the experi- 
ence of the British Colonies. 

Indeed, it is much more easy to see how a slave 
population will be kept within proper bounds, than 
how a free population will be. The physical bar- 
riers are alike to both. In the case of the free 
population, the prudential considerations do not 
always outweigh passion, while, as they address 
themselves to the master, they do not encounter 
any such countervailing force. It is not so much, 
however, by restraining the -intercourse of the sexes, 
as by a treatment of the women unfavorable to child- 
bearing, and by a treatment of the children actually 
born unfavorable to their life, that the raising of 
slaves is checked, where the value of slaves does not 
make it profitable to raise them. It sometimes hap- 
pens, as in a few instances now existing in Cuba, 
that plantations are stocked exclusively with male 
slaves. But ordinarily an increase, where it is not 
desired, is not prevented in this way, but by a man- 



83 

agement of the women and children calculated to 
effect the proposed end. 

While the possible limit of numbers of a race 
of men is not determinable by area merely, it is 
proximately so in reference to negro slaves, whose 
special adaptation is to agriculture, and to agricul- 
ture by rude and unimproving processes. Undoubt- 
edly, their labor may be made available in other 
employments, in which muscle, rather than intel- 
ligence, or nicety of manipulation, is required; 
and it is even insisted (although, as yet, without 
practical proofs on any extensive scale) that it is 
equal to the management of machinery in the pro- 
duction of textile fabrics. It is most manifest, 
however, from the intrinsic probabilities of the case, 
and from an experience most ample in space and 
time, that the labor of negro slaves, in the low con- 
dition of intelligence and instruction, above which 
they cannot be permitted to rise with safety to the 
system of slavery, must be of the rudest description, 
and must be mainly applied to agriculture; and that 
the limit of their possible numbers must be substan- 
tially indicated by the area upon which they can 
be worked. If it is desired to arrest the increase of 
their numbers, it can be infallibly done by simply 
circumscribing their local limits. If it is desired to 
enlarge their numbers, that too can be done, in the 
climate of the United States, and with the average 
treatment of slaves in the United States, by simply 
expanding their local limits. There is no mystery 
or uncertainty in either process. 

Except in the United States, the slave populations 
in America have exhibited no capacity to enlarge 



84 

their numbers ; indeed, have rarely been able even 
to maintain them. 

Wherever the foreign slave trade has been per- 
mitted in tropical countries, the destruction of negro 
life in the condition of slavery has been uniform, 
and a matter of systematic calculation; it having 
been considered better economy to buy new negroes, 
than to preserve the lives of old ones, or to rear the 
young. 

The number of slaves found in the British "West 
India Islands, at the epoch of emancipation, was 
660,000. The number which had been imported 
(Carey on the Slave Trade, Foreign and Domestic) 
was not less than 1,700,000, and was, perhaps, 
2,000,000. 

Taking the numbers of slaves imported into Cuba, 
as stated by Humboldt, down to 1820, from the 
custom-house returns, and as stated since by the 
British Commissioners at Havana, we have the fol- 
lowing results : 

Slaves by the census of 1853 - - 330,425 
Number imported to that time - 651,379 

Lord Brougham, in his Inquiry into the Colonial 
Policy of the European Nations, says of the slave 
population in St. Domingo : 

"During nine years, ending 1784, the total num- 
' bers had only increased from two hundred and 

< fifty thousand to two hundred and ninety-seven 
' thousand; whereas, supposing the propagation 

< only to have kept up the stock, the importation 
' during that period should have produced an aug- 
' mentation of a hundred and twelve thousand at 

< least." 



85 

It is useless to multiply authorities. The expe- 
rience of all the colonies of all nationalities, in the 
West India Islands, in Brazil, and in the Guianas, 
was uniform and unbroken. So long as the slave 
trade supplied victims, the natural increase fell far 
short of the deaths, and the stock was increased or 
maintained only by importations. 

It is true, that as the importations consisted ordi- 
narily of two males to one female, there was an 
excess of males in the slave populations, although 
not in that proportion, because there was a constant 
tendency to the equality of sexes, resulting from 
births. The deficiency of females, however, was 
never so great, as of itself to have precluded an 
increase of numbers by propagation. Even in 
Cuba, where it was greatest, the census of 1827 
found 103,652 females to 183,290 males, and the 
census of 1841 found 155,245 females and 281,250 
males. In many of the Colonies, the excess of males 
was inconsiderable. In the French Islands, Guada- 
loupe and Martinique, in 1836, only nineteen years 
after the prohibition of the slave trade by France, 
the female slaves were 107,222, while the males 
were only 98,358. In Jamaica, in 1824, seventeen 
years after the prohibition of the slave trade by 
Great Britain, and less than that time after it actu- 
ally ceased to exist, the equality of the sexes was 
fully restored. 

Mr. Steele, who visited Barbados in 1790, (see his 
account in a work entitled Mitigation of Slavery,) to 
inspect his own extensive estates, found a due pro- 
portion of the sexes, males one hundred and seventy- 
one, females one hundred and seventy-five, and that 



86 

his stock had been reduced from four hundred and 
ninety-two to three hundred and forty-six, mainly 
by inattention to the pregnant females, and to the 
children born. 

Let us see, now, what the movement of the slave 
population has been, where the slave trade has been 
abolished. Of the British Colonies, Mr. Carey 
(Slave Trade, Foreign and Domestic) says : 

"In 1817, nine years after importation had been 
' declared illegal, (the number of slaves then being 

< 323,827,) the number is stated at 316,150; from 
' which it would appear that the trade must have 
1 been in some measure continued up to that date, 
i as there is no instance on record of any natural in- 
' crease in any of the islands, under any circum- 
' stances. It is, indeed, quite clear that no such 
' increase has taken place ; for had it once com- 
1 menced, it would have continued, which was not 
4 the case, as will be seen by the following figures : 

"In 1817, the number was, as we see, 346,150. In 

< 1820 it was only 342,382 ; and if to this we add the 
! manumissions for the same period, (1,016,) we have 

< a net loss of 2,752. 

"In 1826, they had declined in numbers to 331,119, 
' to which must be added 1,848 manumissions ; show- 
1 ing a loss, in six years, of 9,415, or nearly three per 
' cent. 

" The number shown by the last registration, 1833, 

< was only 311,692; and 'if to this we add 2,000 that 
* had been manumitted, we shall have a loss, in 

< seven years, of 19,275, or more than five per cent. 
In sixteen years, there had been a diminution of 
ten per cent. ; one-fifth of which may be attributed 
to manumission ; and thus it is clearly established, 
that in 1830, as in 1792, a large annual importation 
would have been required, merely to maintain the 
number of the population. 

"That the condition of the negroes was in a 



87 

c course of deterioration in this period, is clearly 
' shown by the fact that the proportion of births to 
' deaths was in a steady course of diminution, as is 
' here shown : # . 

Deaths. Births. 

"From 1817 to 1820 were registered 25,104 24,348 
" 1823 " 1826 " " 25,171 23,026 

" 1826 " 1829 « " 25,137 21,728 

"The destruction of life was thus proceeding with 
1 constantly accelerating rapidity; and a continuance 
1 of the system, as it then existed, must have wit- 
1 nessed the total annihilation of the negro race 
' within half a century. ***** 

"If we look to British Guiana, we find the same 
' results. In 1820, Demerara and Essequibo had a 
6 slave population of 77,376; by 1826, it had fallen 

< to 71,382; and by 1832 it had still further fallen to 

< 65,517. ***** 

"The number of slaves emancipated in 1834, in 
6 all the British possessions, was 780,993; and the 
' net loss in the previous five years had been 38,811, 
' or almost one per cent, per annum." 

In the French Colonies, the slave populations 
remained substantially stationary, after the stoppage 
of supplies from the slave trade ; increasing a very 
little in Guadaloupe and Martinique, and diminish- 
ing a very little in Cayenne. The closing of the 
slave trade by Brazil is too recent to enable us to 
determine its effect upon the number of slaves. 

It may be useful to notice some of the causes of 
the difference, in respect to the increase of slaves, 
between the United States and the tropical regions 
of America in which negro slavery has existed. 

In the first place, it is manifest that forced labor 
must be more destructive of life, under tropical 



suns, than in climates in which vigorous muscular 
effort is healthy and congenial, as it is in the lati- 
tude of Virginia, and in the elevated regions of the 
Carolmas, of Tennessee, of Georgia, of Alabama, 
and of Texas. 

In the second place, the enormous profits of trop- 
ical agriculture offer a constant temptation to the 
system of wearing out slaves by excessive labors, 
and, with reference merely to present economy, 
actually justify that system. The sugar culture has 
destroyed more life than all the European wars of 
the twenty years which followed the French revolu- 
tion. No race has been found at all equal to it, in 
the style in which it is conducted in slave countries, 
with its nineteen hours of work per clay in the 
grinding season, save the African, and even that 
race breaks down under it. The unhappy Coolie 
falls exhausted under the whip, or ends his misery 
by suicide. The sugar culture in this country is 
managed with more regard to slave life, because the 
price of slaves is high, but is still destructive of it. 

In the third place, while the general system of 
slavery in the tropical regions has been that of large 
plantations under the management of agents and 
overseers, the proprietors being often on the other 
side of the Atlantic; the general system in the 
United States has been that of small proprietors, 
which brings the slave under the immediate eye 
and supervision of his owner. Of the two systems, 
the latter is incomparably the most humane. 

In the fourth place, the foreign slave trade had 
existed in great activity in all the tropical regions, 
as it never did in the United States ; the system of 



relying upon it to keep up the stock of negroes was 
thoroughly established; all habits in reference to 
the management of negroes, and especially of the 
women and children, had been formed under that 
system; and when the slave trade was cut off, it 
would necessarily take time to introduce a manage- 
ment, having in view the maintenance of the stock 
of negroes by natural increase. 

Finally, the price of negroes in the tropical 
regions, even after the abolition of the slave trade, 
has been far below what it has been of late years in 
the United States, in which it has been raised by 
the opening of new and rich regions adapted to 
servile labor, and the consequent increase of capital 
devoted to the employment of that species of labor. 
The inducement to raise the negro is, of course, 
proportioned exactly to his value. 

From 1790 to 1810, all the conditions were more 
favorable to the natural increase of slaves in the 
United States than they have ever been since, with 
the single but important exception, that their low 
value diminished the inducement to raise them. 
"What the natural increase was during that period is 
not determinable with accuracy, but it was certainly 
less than it was from 1840 to 1850 ; and that it was 
greater during this latter period, under circum- 
stances in other respects more unfavorable, illus- 
trates the truth that high prices augment the 
numbers of slaves. 

The difficulty of determining the natural increase 
from 1790 to 1810, arises from the fact that the 
foreign slave trade was permitted in some States 
until 1808, and that the number brought in by it is 

4* 



90 

not accurately known. Mr. Carey (Slavery, Domes- 
tic and Foreign) fixes the number, by a series of 
calculations, at seventy thousand, which is thought 
to be "evidently too small" by the statists who made 
up the compendium of the census of 1850. 

During the four years ending January 1, 1808, 
Charleston (S. C.) was thrown open to slaves, and 
thirty-nine thousand and seventy-five were import- 
ed, as appears by the custom-house records. Making 
allowance for the number gained by the acquisition 
of Louisiana, and for this importation at Charleston 
alone, and the natural increase of slaves between 
1800 and 1810 would be about twenty-five per cent, 
only. 

So long as the area of slavery is suffered to be 
enlarged, it is, of course, impossible to conjecture 
the maximum number attainable by the slave 
population of the United States. But it could 
not probably exceed double its present number, 
within the present slave States, if it be confined to 
agricultural employments ; and since, in fact, before 
it can be doubled, it will not exist in some of the 
present slave States, its duplication, without some 
new enlargement, may never be witnessed. After 
its external limits are once fixed, and after the 
spaces not now occupied within its external limits 
are filled, we may look for that gradual decline in 
the value of slaves, which will check their increase, 
or even cause their numbers to decline. An indefi- 
nite and never-ending multiplication of slaves, or 
any multiplication at all beyond the demand occa- 
sioned by profitable employment, supposes an in- 
conceivable reversal of the best-established laws of 



91 

population. It is only a pretext for alarms, which 
are relied upon to terrify us into opening new 
regions to slavery, as the only palliative of an evil 
which might otherwise overwhelm us, when, in 
truth, it is precisely to that policy that the existing 
magnitude of the evil is attributable. 



CHAPTER VII. 

The Ordinance of 1787 firmly maintained by subsequent Congresses. 
Slavery in Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi, never 
within the control of Congress. Slavery obtained a footing in 
Missouri and Arkansas contrary to the intention of Congress. The 
Missouri Compromise was in fact no compromise, but a clear 
victory of the slaveholders. 

The peculiarity of the United States is, that it 
embraces a large slave-breeding region, as well as 
a large slave- working region. Although the real 
interests of these two regions are not harmonious, 
but in many respects adverse, it has been found 
possible to combine them politically by the instinct 
of a common property, sensitive in its nature, and 
artfully represented as being in danger of a common 
attack; while the superior cunning of the slave- 
breeders has enabled them to wield this combination 
for their own sole behoof. The power of this com- 
bination was not dominant during the early period 
of the Government of the United States, but soon 
became so, and has not encountered any formidable 
resistance since 1820. 

The Ordinance of 1787, in respect to the North- 
western Territory, forever prohibiting slavery there- 



92 

in, is imperishable evidence of the prevailing opin- 
ion of that clay, that the power of the nation ought 
to be exerted to check the expansion of that insti- 
tution beyond its existing limits. The prohibition 
of this Ordinance was maintained by the United 
States under the present Constitution, Congress 
having twice refused its assent to the allowance of 
slavery, for limited periods, within the present 
boundaries of Indiana and Illinois, when it was 
asked for by the Territorial authorities and some 
portions of the resident citizens. 

In the States of Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, 
and Mississippi, slavery was extended and estab- 
lished without the participation of the Government 
of the United States, and in the absence of any 
power on its part to prevent it. Kentucky had 
been an integral portion of Virginia, had been slave- 
holding from its original settlement, and, when 
formed into a separate State, retained slavery in the 
exercise of its own independent right to do so. 
Tennessee was formed out of territory ceded by 
North Carolina, which State made it a condition of 
the cession, "that no regulation made, or to be made, 
shall tend to emancipate slaves." The States of Ala- 
bama and Mississippi were formed out of territory 
ceded by Georgia, which State stipulated that the 
Ordinance of 1787 should "in all its parts extend to 
4 the territory contained in the present act of cession, that 

' AKTICLE ONLY EXCEPTED WHICH FORBIDS SLAVERY." 

It is true, that Congress passed an act to organize 
the Territory of Mississippi, making this same ex- 
ception in respect to slavery, in 1798 ; and that the 
cession of Georgia, requiring and imposing this 



exception, was not made until 1802. But the ope- 
ration of the act of 1798 was, by its terms, made 
subject to the rights of jurisdiction and property of 
Georgia, and the act provided for commissioners to 
treat with that State for the cession subsequently 
obtained. It is manifest, therefore, that this excep- 
tion in favor of slavery, in the act of 1798, was made 
in compulsory deference to the known views of 
Georgia, and was only in anticipation of the requi- 
sition which Georgia actually made in 1802. 

So far there is no evidence of any complicity of 
the national power of the United States in the ex- 
pansive movement of slavery. What was done is 
attributable, either to the rooted attachment of the 
citizens of the South to that institution, or to the 
authoritative interference in its favor of the Govern- 
ments of the slaveholding States, as in the instances 
of North Carolina and Georgia, prescribing, in virtue 
of their rights of proprietorship, that Congress should 
do nothing to interdict it. 

In 1790, about which time the State Governments 
of Tennessee and Kentucky were formed, their pop- 
ulation was as follows : 

Whites. Slaves. ■ 

Kentucky 61,133 11,830 

Tennessee- --'--- 32,013 3,417 

Considering the small number of their slaves, and 
their little pecuniary value at that period, (less than 
one hundred dollars each,) Kentucky and Tennessee 
might easily have provided for their emancipation, 
if they had had any disposition to do so. 

On the other hand, Alabama and Mississippi, 
when, at the epoch of the formation of their State 



94 

Governments, they were in a condition to control 
their own destinies in this particular, had so large a 
proportion of slaves in their population, ahout one- 
third in Alabama, and about three-sevenths in Mis- 
sissippi, that no movement of that kind could have 
been looked for. There is not the slightest reason 
to suppose, however, if the proportion of slaves had 
been ever so small, that those States, made up of emi- 
grants from other slaveholding States, would have 
interdicted slavery. In 1824, a most earnest attempt 
was made by that class of the inhabitants of Illinois, 
to call a convention to alter the Constitution of that 
State, so as to establish slavery there. A full ac- 
count of this attempt may be found in Perkin's An- 
nals of the West. It was defeated, after an animated 
political contest, by a majority of only eighteen hun- 
dred out of twelve thousand votes. The principal 
portion of the population of Illinois was then in the 
southern part of it, which had been settled chiefly 
from the slaveholding States ; and it is said that, even 
at this day, the establishment of slavery finds many 
advocates in that quarter. In 1836, the Republic of 
Texas, then forming its Constitution, established 
slavery, and precluded the Legislature from inter- 
fering with it, or from checking the ingress of slaves 
from the United States, or from even permitting 
emancipation by the owners of slaves, except on 
condition of their removal beyond the limits of the 
Republic. Yet the number of slaves in Texas, in 
1834, was only about three thousand, according to 
the highest estimate, and could not have been much 
increased during the two following years of revolu- 
tion and war. Of so little value is the assertion, 



95 

often made, that slavery is submitted to, because it 
is established, and cannot be removed. If such an 
assertion is sometimes sincere, it is, in the vast ma- 
jority of cases, a piece of shallow hypocrisy. 

On the 26th of March, 1804, the Congress of the 
United States passed an act for the government of 
the vast territories acquired in the previous year 
from France, under the name of Louisiana. The 
power of Congress over the subject of slavery in 
those territories, was not questioned at that day ; 
and in what Congress then did, is to be found the 
authentic evidence of the opinions on that subject 
which controlled it. 

The act of March 26, 1804, organized so much of 
these territories as was south of the latitude of thirty- 
three degrees, being the present State of Louisiana, 
ander the name of the " Territory of Orleans ; " and as 
to the remainder of these territories, denominated the 
" District of Louisiana" it was provided as follows : 

" The executive power now vested in the Gov- 
' ernor of the Indiana Territory, shall extend to 
* and be exercised in the said District of Louisiana. 
' The Governor and Judges of the Indiana Territory 
' shall have power to establish, in the said District 
i of Louisiana, inferior courts, and prescribe their 
' jurisdiction and duties, and to make all laws 
< which they may deem conducive to the good gov- 
4 ernment of the inhabitants thereof." 

In respect to the " Territory of Orleans," Congress 
prohibited the foreign slave trade, prohibited also 
the introduction of slaves who had been brought 
into the United States from abroad subsequent to 
May 1, 1798, and finally provided as follows : 

" No slave, or slaves, shall, directly or indirectly, 



96 

1 be brought into said Territory, except by a citizen 
1 of the United States, removing into said Territory 
1 for actual settlement, and being at the time of such 
1 removal bona fide owner of such slave, or slaves ; 
' and every slave imported, or brought into said 
' Territory, contrary to the provisions of this act, 
' shall thereupon be entitled to, and receive, his or 
* her freedom." 

The actual condition of things in the " Territory 
of Orleans''' was, that slaves were numerous, and 
constituted nearly one-half of the population. Major 
Stoddard (Sketches of Louisiana) states the whites 
at 41,700; the slaves at 38,800. These numbers 
are probably too large, but the proportion is con- 
firmed by the authentic census of 1810. Under 
these circumstances, Congress permitted slavery to 
remain, but absolutely prohibited both the foreign 
and domestic slave trade. In permitting slave- 
holding citizens of the United States, moving into 
this Territory, to take their slaves with them, Con- 
gress may be supposed to have been influenced, in 
part, by the desire of introducing American citizens 
into the newly-acquired province, and thus assu- 
ring and confirming the possession of it. 

Within the "District of Louisiana, 1 ' according to 
Major Stoddard, there were 9,020 whites, and 1,320 
slaves. Nearly the whole of this population was 
north of the present State of Arkansas. From the 
present State of Louisiana, north, far enough to 
include the considerable settlement at New Madrid, 
in the present State of Missouri, Major Stoddard 
estimated the whole population at only 1,350. This 
was the actual state of the case, although it cannot 
be presumed to have been known with exactness, 



97 

when Congress legislated in 1804. The Territory 
was practically as remote as Oregon is now, and it 
may be supposed that Congress was merely advised, 
that the population was altogether inconsiderable, 
principally located in the latitude of the free Ter- 
ritory of Indiana, and possessing a few slaves only. 

The act of 1804 contains no prohibition of, or 
restriction upon, the introduction of slaves into the 
"District of Louisiana " and it cannot be supposed, 
therefore, that Congress contemplated the continued 
existence of slavery within it. If such a result had 
been considered possible, the same prohibitions and 
restrictions would have been placed upon the "Dis- 
trict of Louisiana," as had been placed upon the 
a Territory j Orleans." 

The "District of Louisiana" was put under the 
control of the Government of Indiana Territory, 
which was free territory under the Ordinance of 1787. 

The actual course of events, equally unexpected 
and disastrous, was, that under the administration 
of the Governor and Judges of Indiana Territory, 
slavery became established in Missouri. The coun- 
try, absorbed by the great events in our foreign 
relations which preceded the war of 1812 with 
Great Britain, and by the overwhelming interests 
of that war, paid little heed to the slow movements 
of an obscure and far-distant province. That the 
country would have interfered, however, to arrest 
slavery in Missouri, if earlier aroused to it, is abun- 
dantly evident from the stout resistance which was 
made to the evil in 1820, when it challenged public 
attention by demanding admission into the Union. 

On the 1st of October, 1804, the Governor and 



98 

Judges of Indiana Territory enacted a law for the 
" District of Louisiana" not indeed establishing 
slavery, but recognising and protecting it, by provis- 
ions making the stealing of slaves a capital offence, 
directing the sale of the slaves of intestates where 
a division in kind among heir3 was impracticable, 
&c. This Indiana act of 1804 was silent as to the 
introduction of slaves. It remained the only statute 
law on the subject of slavery until 1817, when some 
additional provisions were made by the Territory of 
Missouri. 

In 1812, the " District of Louisiana" was organized 
as the Territory of Missouri. In 1819, the Territory 
of Arkansas was detached from it. In 1820, the 
population of those Territories was as follows : 

Whites. Slaves. 

Missouri 55,988 10,222 

Arkansas 12,579 1,617 

In the history of these unheeded and obscure 
events is to be found the origin of results, which, 
in their full development, have changed the whole 
face of affairs on this continent. If Congress, in 
1804, had provided affirmatively for the prevention 
of slavery in upper Louisiana, which, in the condi- 
tion of public sentiment at that time, would cer- 
tainly have been done, if the continuance of slavery 
there had been anticipated ; or if the Governor and 
Judges of the Territory of Indiana had legislated in 
harmony with the spirit and intent of the act of 
Congress from which they received their authority ; 
how completely all subsequent history would have 
been reversed. The negro race, except immediately 



99 

along the Gulf of Mexico, would not have passed 
the Mississippi; Missouri would now be twice as 
populous as it is ; Arkansas would be a great and 
flourishing State; Wisconsin and Minnesota would 
have remained as yet an untrodden wilderness; 
Lake Superior would not yet have been opened to 
navigation; while on the South, the social institu- 
tions of (at least) Northern Texas would have been 
those of civilization and freedom, instead of those 
of slavery and barbarism. It was impossible to 
arrest altogether the growth and development of 
regions so fertile and genial, and admirably circum- 
stanced in respect to natural facilities of communi- 
cation, as the States of Missouri and Arkansas, but 
they have been dwarfed and kept back for a gene- 
ration by the blight of servile institutions; while 
free white emigration, which tended naturally to 
the Southwest, was not even permitted to move 
West, but has been pushed artificially to the extreme 
Northwest. It is not improbable that the legislation 
of 1804 may be felt in a future not distant, in the 
destinies of the country upon Puget's Sound, whose 
railroad communication with the Valley of the Mis- 
sissippi may be anticipated by half a century, because 
free population has been forced up by the barrier of 
slavery into hyperborean regions. So far reaching 
may be the consequence of laws, and so momentous 
are the responsibilities of those who are permitted 
to shape the destinies of infant communities. 

In 1820, this whole question of slavery extension 
was presented to the country, in the application of 
Missouri for admission into the Union, and, after a 
discussion of the most searching vigor and earnest- 



100 

ness, was decided in favor of the slave-breeders ; and 
commencing with this signal triumph, that interest 
has held undisputed sway over the legislation of the 
Republic, down to the present time. 

Contrary to the inducements of immediate pecu- 
niary advantage, the slave-working region, the cot- 
ton and sugar region upon the Gulf of Mexico, was 
found, on this occasion, acting in concert with Vir- 
ginia. That those whose chief business was the 
raising and selling of slaves, should wish to multiply 
markets for slaves, was plain enough. That those 
who were large and constant purchasers of slaves, 
should assist in creating competing purchasers, was 
a proof, that the sympathy of a common property, 
and views, more or less distinctly defined, of polit- 
ical domination, were strong enough to reconcile 
them to temporary sacrifices. In the Missouri con- 
troversy, as in the Kansas controversy of our own 
times, the slave-owners of all descriptions, and what- 
ever their special interests were, acted in unbroken 
unity and phalanx. In that controversy, Mississippi 
and Alabama, with vast bodies of unoccupied land, 
and pining for population, insisted upon diverting 
across the Mississippi emigration which otherwise 
would have been directed upon themselves; just as 
more recently, Texas, to her own immediate and 
palpable injury, was found a hearty co-operator in 
the effort to push slavery into Kansas.* 



* If slavery could have been carried into the mines of California, 
and if the effect of transferring them to that sphere of labor had been 
to raise the price of a negro man to $5,000, as Gov. Wise of Virginia 
insists it would have been, the Gulf States would have been forced to 
abandon the business of cotton raising. 



101 

It is sometimes said, that the Missouri controversy 
of 1820 was settled by a compromise, but this is a 
most flagrant perversion of history. 

What species of compromise is that, in which one 
party gets everything it asks, without the slightest 
restriction, or the minutest abatement, and the other 
party gets nothing better, than a naked promise, to 
be fulfilled after the lapse of a generation, and with 
no guarantee of good faith ? 

At the very moment of the adoption of this dis- 
astrous measure, Mr. Pinckney, a Representative in 
Congress from South Carolina, despatched the fol- 
lowing letter to a Charleston editor : 

" Congress Hall, March 2, 1820. 

{Three o'clock at night.) 

"Dear Sir: I hasten to inform you that this mo- 
* ment we have carried the question to admit Missouri 
' and all Louisiana to the southward of thirty-six de- 
1 grees thirty minutes, free of the restriction of sla- 
1 very, and give the South, in a short time, an addi- 

< tion of six, and perhaps eight, members to the 
' Senate of the United States. It is considered here 
' by the slaveholding States as a great triumph. The 
1 votes were close — ninety to eighty-six — produced 
' by the seceding and absence of a few moderate men 
' from the North. To the north of thirty-six degrees 
\ thirty minutes, there is to be, by the present law, 

< restriction, which you will see by the votes I voted 
1 against. But it is at present of no moment ; it is 
' a vast tract, uninhabited only by savages and wild 
' beasts, in which not a foot of the Indian claim to 
' soil is extinguished, and in which, according to the 

< ideas prevalent, no land office will be open for a 
\ great length of time." 

"With respect, your obedient servant, 

"Charles Pinckney." 



102 

For the present, everything secured to the South, 
and the provision affected to be made for the North 
put off to a far-distant future; these are the ideas 
expressed in Mr. Pinckney's letter. And does he 
not convey the other idea, not fit to be put in express 
words, that it would be time enough to take care of 
this future when it arrived, and that one generation 
of slaveholders having secured all it wanted, the next 
generation of slaveholders might be trusted to take 
care of itself? 

A compromise implies an adjustment and accord 
between parties; terms proposed on one side, and 
accepted on the other. Nothing of that kind occur- 
red in 1820. The men who truly represented the 
free States, scouted the offer of the line of thirty-six 
degrees thirty minutes, proposed as an idle rule for 
a future generation, as an insulting and transparent 
fraud. They understood perfectly well how little 
mere good faith would weigh against the vast pecu- 
niary and political interests of slavery^ and that, in 
the progress of time and events, that institution 
would seize every inch of territory it could occupy, 
regardless of all agreements. The true men of 1820 
from the free States made no compromise. They 
resisted the admission of Missouri to the last, but 
were beaten, outvoted, and vanquished. The offer 
of the line of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes, as 
the rule of an indefinite future, deceived nobody, 
and was expected to deceive nobody. It was merely 
invented as the best cover the case admitted of, for 
the few men from the free States, who were pre-de- 
termined to betray their constituents at all events, 
and who would have done it, if need be, without 



103 

any cover. The controversy of 1820 was ended, not 
by a compromise, but by clear victory for one side, 
and the total rout of the other. The policy of the 
Government was reversed, and a new and disastrous 
epoch of slavery extension and slave-breeding was 
entered upon, the end of which is not yet clearly 
visible. 

Everything has since happened, which might have 
been expected to happen, after the humiliation and 
overthrow of the free States in 1820. As soon as 
the progress of population had reached the region 
behind Missouri, the line of thirty-six degrees thirty 
minutes was wiped out, and slavery has been arrest- 
ed in its progress, neither by its own good faith, nor 
by the political resistance of the country, but by the 
competition of free labor. Compared with the stout 
resistance to the admission of Missouri, the political 
opposition of the free States to the enslavement of 
Kansas, was feeble and short-lived. It exploded in 
a fitful outbreak in 1854, and ended ignominiously 
in the Presidential contest of 1856, when, even in 
the free States themselves, a majority of the voters 
were found on the side of candidates in the interest 
of slavery extension. 

Of the value of agreements to be fulfilled within a 
much shorter time than the period of a generation, 
where the subject-matter is slavery, we have had an- 
other illustration in the case of Texas. The measure 
of annexation was carried upon a stipulated division 
of it between free and slave labor, and could have 
been carried in no other way. The line of division, 
the parallel of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes, is 
set down in the act of annexation. Texas, north of 



104 

that line, has since been made national territory, at 
a cost of ten millions of dollars, and appears now on 
the map as a part of ISTew Mexico and of the Indian 
Territory behind Arkansas; but the obligation of 
good faith, that it shall be free from slavery, still 
attaches to it unimpaired. The obligation is only 
twelve years old, but is already forgotten ; and if it 
is enforced at all, it must be by free emigration, as 
the obligation of 1820 recently has been in the case 
of Kansas. 

At this moment, there is no political element in 
the United States strong enough to resist any scheme 
which the slave-breeders may devise. The obstacles 
which they encounter at home and abroad arc 
none of them political. The Government, in all its 
branches, is in their hands. If they fail to overrun 
all the present Territories of the Union, it is because 
white laborers increase faster than slaves, and need 
room, and have the capacity to take it. If they fail 
to acquire Cuba, it is because the acquisition is 
resisted by combinations abroad, and not because 
the treasury and fleets of the nation are not com- 
pletely at their command to buy it, or seize it. If 
they fail to occupy the contiguous portions of 
Mexico, it is because they may not be adapted to 
slave labor, and not because the Government would 
hesitate one single moment to make any acquisition 
which the interests of slavery demand. They are 
still in the enjoyment of the prestige of the victory 
achieved in 1820, the undisputed masters of national 
legislation, the dispensers of national patronage, and 
the dictators of national opinion. 

It is when things are at their worst, that they 



105 

sometimes begin to mend. "When the advancing 
tide has reached high water, from that instant it 
begins to ebb. Slavery has conquered politicians, 
but it cannot conquer the laws of nature. It bears 
within itself the seeds of decay and death, and its 
fate cannot be averted, although it may be post- 
poned. As a system, it is inherently unsound, and 
its apparent prosperity is false and hollow. It 
creates nothing and improves nothing, and only 
exists by the constant destruction of the natural 
wealth of fertile soils. It will die when it ceases to 
be nourished by that which alone sustains its life. 
To circumscribe it, is to kill it. Since the conquest 
of Texas in 1836, it has made no acquisition abroad, 
and during the last twenty years of constant agita- 
tion it has appropriated by occupation no single 
square mile of the national domain at home. It 
gained nothing, as a system of labor, by the annex- 
ation of Texas in 1845, because Texas was already 
slaveholding ; and it lost much, both as a system of 
labor and politically, because that annexation re- 
sulted in the conquest of California, which is free, 
and which offers a convenient basis for extending 
free institutions southward and eastward. At the 
very moment when a decree of the Supreme Court 
has declared negro slavery to be the law of the Ter- 
ritories, irrepealable by Congress, or by the people, 
white labor is advancing to possess them with the 
strong hand. If freedom has been outgeneraled, 
it cannot be outnumbered, and if worsted in the 
arena of politics, it may command a better fortune 
on other fields. 



106 



CHAPTER Vni. 

Emigration does not diminish population. Opinions of Dr. Malthus, 
Dr. Franklin, and the Earl of Selkirk. Illustrations. Nearly a 
million slaves of Virginia stock existing out of Virginia in 1850, 
who would not have existed anywhere but for the domestic slave 
trade. Free negroes increase slowly, if at all. The Northern 
States cannot be invaded by negroes. 

Population is not reduced by the emigration of 
free persons, or by the deportation of slaves, unless 
the emigration or deportation equals or exceeds the 
possible rate of natural increase, because nature 
forthwith fills the vacuum. Indeed, it frequently 
happens that population is increased by emigration. 

Population will advance, sooner or later, to the 
limit of possible subsistence, unless the whole natu- 
ral increase is carried off, and ordinarily, with just 
as much rapidity, during the existence of emigra- 
tion, as in the absence of it. It is not often that the 
range of employment affording subsistence expands 
so fast as the human species is capable of expanding 
under favorable circumstances; and hence the rate 
of increase of the species is checked, unless emigra- 
tion takes off the surplus. It is only this surplus 
which emigration takes off, and without emigration 
this surplus would not exist, being rendered impos- 
sible by the lack of employment and subsistence. 

Mr. Malthus, in his Essay on Population, says : 

" There are no fears so totally ill-founded as the 
' fears of depopulation from emigration." 

******* "The population of the 
' United States of America, according to the last 
6 census, is 5,172,312. We have no reason to believe 
' that Great Britain is less populous at present, for 



107 

' the emigration of the small parent stock which 
6 produced these numbers. On the contrary, a cer- 
1 tain degree of emigration is known to be favorable 
' to the population of the mother country. It has 
' been particularly remarked that the two Spanish 
' provinces, from which the greatest number of 
' people emigrated to America, became in conse- 

* quence more populous." 

In his observations upon the Highlands of Scot- 
land, (1805,) the Earl of Selkirk says: 

"By the returns made to Dr. Webster in 1755, the 
' seven parishes of the Isle of Skye contained 11,252 

* inhabitants. By those to Sir John Sinclair, be- 
< tween 1791 and 1794, 14,470. Some time after 
' Dr. Webster's enumeration, the emigrations com- 
6 menced, and since the year 1770 have been fre- 
' quent, and of great account. A gentleman of 
' ability and observation, whose employment on the 
i island gave him the best opportunities of informa- 
c tion, estimates the total number who emigrated 

* between 1770 and 1790 at 4,000. The number 
' who during the same period went to the low coun- 
6 try of Scotland, going in a more gradual manner, 
' and exciting less observation, could not be so well 
' ascertained, but from concurring circumstances he 
4 considered 8,000 the least at which they could be 
6 reckoned. Notwithstanding this drain, it appears 
6 that the natural tendency of population has more 
' than filled the blank ; and if, to the numbers which 
6 have left the island, we add the natural increase 
6 which has probably taken place among them also 
' in their new situation, we cannot doubt that there 
' are now living a number of people, descended from 
' those who inhabited the island at the period of Dr. 
' Webster's enumeration, at least double of its actual 

* population. Now, let it be supposed, for the sake 

* of argument, that the whole of those could again 
'be collected within the island. _**!■* When 

* its actual numbers are an oppressive burden, what 



108 

1 would be the case if such an addition were made? 
4 Can it possibly be believed, that, if the emigrations 
4 had not taken place, the same natural increase 
4 would have gone on ? And does not this instance 
4 demonstrate, that to restrain emigration, would 
* only be to restrain the principle of increasing 
' population?" 

In a tract upon population, published in 1751, 
Dr. Benjamin Franklin says: 

"Any occasional vacancy in a country (if the laws 
4 are good) will soon be filled by natural generation. 
4 Who can now find the vacancy made in Sweden, 
4 France, or other warlike nations, by the plague of 
4 heroism forty years ago; in France, by the expul- 
4 sion of the Protestants; in England, by the settle- 
4 ment of her colonies; or in Guinea, by a hundred 
' years' exportation of slaves, that has blackened half 
4 America? 

" There is no bound to the prolific nature of plants, 
4 or animals, but what is made by their crowding and 
4 interfering with each other's means of subsistence. 
' "Was the earth vacant of other plants, it might 
4 gradually be sowed and overspread with one kind 
4 only; as, for instance, with fennel; and were it 
4 empty of other inhabitants, it might, in a few 
4 years, be replenished from one nation only; as, for 
4 instance, with Englishmen. Thus there are sup- 
4 posed to be now upwards of one million of English 
4 souls in North America, (though it is thought scarce 
4 80,000 have been brought over sea,) and yet, per- 
4 haps, there is not one the fewer in Britain, but 
4 rather many more, on account of the employment 
4 the colonies offered to manufacturers at home. 

44 In fine, a nation well regulated is like a polypus; 
4 take away a limb, its place is soon supplied ; cut it 
4 in two, and each deficient part shall soon grow out 
4 of the part remaining. Thus, if you have room 
4 and subsistence enough, as you may, by dividing, 
4 make ten polypuses out of one, you may, of one, 



109 

' make ten nations, equally populous and powerful; 
' or, rather, increase a nation ten-fold in numbers 
' and strength." 

If Malthus, and Selkirk, and Franklin, had lived 
to the present day, they would have been able to il- 
lustrate their views by examples on a more extended 
scale. 

Of the old nations in Europe, it is the non-emi- 
grating which are stationary, and the migrating 
which are advancing in population. Of the one 
class, France, with a population of twenty-eight mil- 
lions in 1790, had only reached thirty-five millions 
in 1856, and in the last decade has gained only half 
a million, while Great Britain, which is colonizing 
the globe, is enlarging her numbers at home. The 
London Times (1857) says : 

" In 1842 the estimated population of England and 

< Wales was 16,124,000; in 1856 it was 19,044,000, 
1 showing an increase of nearly 3,000,000 in fourteen 
' years. In Scotland the increase seems to have 
' been in the same proportion, the population in 

< 1856 being estimated at 3,033,177. It is probable 
6 the total population of the United Kingdom at the 

< present time does not fall far short of 29,000,000. 
' This increase is not only satisfactory, but astonish- 
i ing, when we consider the immense drain of late 
' years by emigration. In the ten years ending 
1 1856, we find that the United Kingdom sent out 
' 2,800,000 emigrants, a greater stream than has 
6 poured from one country since the modern history 
' of Europe began. 

"That the population of the United Kingdom 
4 should, in spite of this seemingly exhausting drain, 
4 continue to increase, is sufficiently explained by 
4 the statistics of births and marriages. In 1842 the 
4 population of England and Wales was 16,124,000, 



110 

< and the births 517,739; but in the year 1856 we 
' find that, with a population of 19,044,000, the births 
i are 657,000: that is, while the population has in- 
' creased less than one-fifth, the number of births in 
•' the year has increased nearly two-sevenths. Thus 
' we learn the very gratifying fact that our popu- 

* lation is not only increasing, but actually increasing 
' at a greater ratio than it was fifteen years ago, so 
' far as births are concerned. And the evidence 
' from the return of deaths is equally cheering; for 
1 in 1842 the deaths were 349,519 to 16,000,000; in 
'1856 they were only 391,369 to 19,000,000; or, 
' while the population had increased nearly one- 
' fifth, the deaths had increased little more than 
' one-ninth. Another fact which proves the pros- 

* perity of the country is the great increase of mar- 
1 riages. In 1842-'43 the marriages were in England 

< and Wales 118,825 and 123,818, respectively; in 
6 1853 they had risen to 164,520, and though slightly 
' diminished in 1855 by the war, they were 159,000 
' in 1856. The number, then, on an average of years, 
' may be said to have increased one-third from the 
' beginning to the conclusion of the period embraced 

* in the return, while population has increased less 
' than one-fifth." 

In certain years, but few, however, the emigration 
from Ireland has exceeded the natural increase; but 
its population has kept up with the means of sup- 
porting it, and numbers as many this day, as if not 
a man had left its shores. Emigration has not di- 
minished the number of Irishmen in Ireland, while 
it has been spreading the race throughout the world. 

The Portuguese and Spaniards have ceased to 
colonize and have ceased to multiply. In Germany, 
on the other hand, population advances, while 
emigrants swarm, eastward to Russia, westward to 
America, and even to the antipodes. 



Ill 

Even more striking examples may be found in 
our own country, in which are combined, in a 
remarkable degree, the enterprising spirit of emi- 
gration, and inviting temptations and opportunities 
for it. In 1850, while 2,101,324 New England born 
were living in their native States, 241,596 had 
moved to the Middle States, and 196,074 had moved 
to the Northwest. From the old Southern States, 
the white emigration has been even greater, reach- 
ing forty-two per cent, of the white population of 
South Carolina living in 1850. And yet in none 
of the old States does population diminish, while 
they are filling up the new; and over a large por- 
tion of the Atlantic seaboard, the increase is con- 
stant and large. 

That emigration does not diminish population is 
clear enough, and that it sometimes increases popu- 
lation is equally clear. This last result is explaina- 
ble in various ways. Dr. Franklin suggests that 
English colonization, by creating and enlarging 
markets for manufactures, renders possible a greater 
English population at home; and upon the same 
principle, JSTew England would be to-day less popu- 
lous, without the contributions she has made to the 
numbers and vigor of the "West. Where facilities 
for emigration exist, and where children may be 
easily established in colonies and new States, mar- 
riages will increase in frequency and fruitfulnes, as 
illustrated in the British statistics reproduced by 
the London Times, In the case of the Spanish 
provinces referred to by Mr. Malthus, where emi- 
gration created a demand for people, they " became 
in consequence more populous" 



112 

A slave population will not be diminished by 
emigration any more than a free population, but 
may be increased by it, upon the same principles, 
making allowance for the difference in the cases. 

Let us see how it has been with Virginia, that 
" Guinea" of the "Hew World, which has "blackened 
half America" by her "exportation of slaves " and will 
"blacken" the whole of it, if she can have her own 
way. The 293,427 slaves found there in 1790 
amounted, with their descendants, (they quintupled 
in sixty years,) to 1,467,135 in 1850, of whom 472,526 
were then living in Virginia, and the balance, 
994,609, were living elsewhere, and the census of 
1860 will find nearly fourteen hundred thousands 
of negro slaves of Virginia stock outside of her 
limits. Can we console ourselves, in the presence 
of an infliction so enormous and so deplorable, with 
the belief that Virginia has been relieved of a 
burden cast upon others, that this vast number of 
slaves must, at all events, have existed, and that it 
was a mere question of the place where ? We may 
believe this, if we choose to do so, and may persist 
in the belief by resolutely closing our ears to facts 
and common sense, but not otherwise. 1,467,135 
negro slaves could not be subsisted in Virginia. 
The remunerative employment for them is not found 
there. The numbers actually in Virginia are main- 
tained, not by the profits of their labor, but by sell- 
ing their annual increase; and it is this increase, 
with the high value it possesses in the market, 
which causes them to be kept. The breeding of 
them is deliberately carried on, and carefully looked 
after, for the purpose of selling them, and not for 



113 

the purpose of working them. It is, in short, the 
extended demand for this kind of people, which 
makes Virginia u more populous " in slaves. 

In a speech before the Colonization Society, in 
1829, Henry Clay said: 

"It is believed that nowhere in the farming por- 
* tion of the United States would slave labor be 
' generally employed, if the proprietors were not 
' tempted to raise slaves by the high price of the Southern 
1 markets, which keeps it up in their own." 

In his Review of Debates in 1831-32, Professor 
Dew, of Virginia, says: 

"Six thousand slaves are yearly exported from 
' Virginia to other States. A full equivalent being 
' left in the place of the slave, this emigration 
' becomes an advantage to the State, and does not 
' check the black population as much as, at first 
' view, we might imagine ; because it furnishes 
' every inducement to the master to attend to the 
6 negroes, to encourage breeding, and to cause the greatest 
i number possible to be raised. Virginia is, in' fact, a 
' negro-raising State for other States." — Professor 
Dew, of Virginia, Review of Debates in 1831-32. 

In the Legislature of Virginia, in 1832, Mr. 
Gholson said: 

"It has always (perhaps erroneously) been con- 
' sidered, by steady and old-fashioned people, that 
' the owner of land had a reasonable right to its 
' annual profits; the owner of orchards to their 
' annual fruits ; the owners of brood mares to their 
' product; and the owners of female slaves to their 
* increase. The legal maxim of partus sequitur 
' ventrem is coeval with the existence of the right of 
< property itself, and is founded in wisdom and 
'justice. It is on the justice and inviolability of 
' this maxim that the master foregoes the service of the 
'female slave, has her nursed and attended during the 

5* 



114 

'period of her gestation, and raises the helpless infant 
< offspring. The value of the property justifies the 
' expense, and I do not hesitate to say that in its 
* increase consists much of our wealth." 

In the Convention to revise the Constitution of 
Virginia, (See Debates in Virginia Convention of 
1829-30,) Judge Upshur observed that a then 
recent law of Louisiana had reduced the value of 
slaves in Virginia, "in two hours after it was known,'" 
twenty-five per cent. ; referring, undoubtedly, to 
the stringent Louisiana statute of January 31, 1829, 
which interposed numerous and formidable obsta- 
cles to the introduction of slaves into that State. 
Nothing could more strikingly illustrate the fact, 
that the price of Virginia slaves depends, not upon 
real value at home, but upon markets abroad, and 
that they are raised, not to be worked, but to be 
sold. 

The idea that anything has been gained by pro- 
viding outlets for the slaves of the northern slave 
States, is a delusion and a snare; a cheat in those 
who propagate it, and a pitfall for the unwary. 
The only one of those States which has made any 
substantial progress in getting rid of slavery since 
the Revolution, is Delaware ; and Delaware prohibits 
the sale or removal of slaves, and in that prohibition 
is the sole explanation of her progress. If her 
citizens could have sold slaves, they would have 
raised them. Only being permitted to work them, 
and not finding that profitable, they have not raised 
them. 

In the letter of Hon. Robert J. "Walker, advocating 
the annexation of Texas, in 1844, it was promised 



115 

that by that measure slavery in Kentucky and Vir- 
ginia would be "greatly diminished in twenty years." 
That has not happened, but the reverse. In Vir- 
ginia, the number of slaves, which had diminished 
during the previous decade, increased during the 
decade which was signalized by the annexation of 
Texas. In Kentucky, slaves increased in both de- 
cades, but most rapidly in the last; a little more 
than ten per cent, between 1830 and 1840, but 
nearly sixteen per cent, between 1840 and 1850. It 
is thus shown by experience, as well as by sound 
reasoning, that the multiplication of slaves which 
results from outlets, overbalances the number 
drained off. 

There is no reason to believe that there has been 
any progress for the better in the northern slave 
States, the slave-breeding States, since 1850; down 
to which time the census shows that slavery was 
only confirmed in them, because made profitable, 
by the faculty of selling the increase to the extreme 
South. 

The Eichmond (Ya.) Examiner, of May 29, 1857, 
says: 

" The mistaken idea seems to prevail, to a great 

< extent, that the slave population of Virginia is 
' annually diminished by the sales of our slaves into 
6 more southern States. This is a very great mistake. 
6 The slave population, so far from diminishing in 
6 numbers, is steadily increasing. According to the 
1 statistical information which we published in our 

< issue of last Friday, the slaves in Virginia have 
6 increased some fifteen thousand since 1850. In 

< our opinion, the Abolition dream of a prospective 
' emancipation of our slaves is utterly and hopelessly 
' visionary and vain. For ourselves, we rejoice to 



116 

< believe that African slavery is as permanently and 
6 immovably fixed and fastened to our soil, as the 

< bedded ores of the Alleghanies." 

Slaves being taxable property, their numbers are 
ascertained at frequent intervals. 

In Kentucky, from 1850 to 1855, the taxable slaves 
increased from 196,841 to 202,790. * • 

To no point can we look for any compensation 
for the vast regions of the Southwest overrun by 
slavery, unless it be to Missouri. That State, un- 
doubtedly, has been saved from a large slave popu- 
lation, and may yet be reclaimed to freedom, because 
the States on the Gulf of Mexico have presented 
greater inducements for the employment of slave 
labor. But this proves, not that any region has 
been relieved of slaves by making markets for them, 
but that a wider space has been opened for slavery 
than it had the physical capacity to occupy; that for 
lack of numbers it could not appropriate in fact what 
it commanded by legislation ; and that, in short, by 
an inexplicable generosity, we have offered to the 
slave-breeders more than they could possibly take. 

Under the actual condition of things in the 
slave States, the profits of slave-breeding are almost 
fabulous. Three notices of sales within the present 
month (May, 1857) have happened to arrest the eye 
of the writer, and the attention of the reader is 
requested to the enormous prices paid for children. 



*The statement on page 19, that the proportion of slaves to whites 
has been constantly increasing in Kentucky, should be modified. It 
was true down to 1830. Since that time, it has slightly diminished, 
in consequence, chiefly, of the expansion of the white population in 
the cities and counties on the Ohio river. 



117 

Case I. From a Southern paper, copied into the 
New York Tribune. 

"Judy, aged twenty-four years, and child, $1,255; 
' Jack, aged four years, $376; Elvina, aged five 
'years, $400; Bettie, aged eight years, $785; 
' Henry, aged twenty-nine years, diseased, $605 ; 
' Jeff, aged twenty-six years, $1,100; George, aged 
' nineteen years, $1,205." 

Case II, From the Baltimore Sun. Sale in Prince 
George's county, adjoining Washington city. 

"The following slaves, owned hy L. II. Chew, 
'have heen sold, viz: one woman and two small 
' girls sold for $1,450. Boy about fifteen years of 
' age sold for $915. Small boy sold for $700. Girl 
' about fourteen years of age sold for $900. Two 
' small girls sold, one for $880 and the other for 
'$350." 

Case III. From an account of sales in Morgan 
county, (Missouri,) May 2, published in St. Louis 
Republican. 

"A negro man, twenty-five years old, brought 
'$1,250; a man, twenty-eight years old, brought 
' $905; a girl, nine years old, brought $805; two 
' boys, the eldest ■Q.ve years old, brought $487; the 
' other, two and a half years old, brought $325." 

Is it wonderful that the "brood mares," with such 
prices for their young, should be well fed and well 
groomed ? Is it wonderful that the desire should be 
most ardent to extend institutions, under which 
"Jack, aged four years" will sell on the auction 
block for three hundred and seventy-six good, hard 
dollars ; while three hundred and twenty-five dol- 
lars is thought cheap enough for a boy "two and a 
half years old?" And, finally, taking human nature 



118 

as it is, who is most blameworthy: he who raises 
" small girls" for sale under the temptation of these 
prices, or he who creates, or connives at creating, 
the markets upon which such prices depend ? 

It is too plain for argument, and indeed is admit- 
ted, that no such number of negroes could or would 
be maintained in Virginia, as slaves, as the number 
of slaves of Virginia stock now scattered over the 
country; it is hardly affirmed that the actual number 
kept there as slaves, would be kept as such, if the 
faculty of selling abroad was taken away ; and it is 
not denied that the rate of increase of slaves in Vir- 
ginia is stimulated by prices which result, not from 
the profits of their labor, but from sales. The argu- 
ment urged by those who uphold the famishing of 
markets for the slaves (at present the chief product) 
of Virginia, is, that although their rate of increase 
might be diminished by cutting off those markets, 
it would still be large, and that the number, who 
could not be profitably employed as slaves, would 
still exist in the form of freed negroes; and it never 
fails to be added, that in that form they would flow 
over into the free States, to their great damage and 
annoyance. 

Let us look this matter in the face, and see how 
formidable it really is. 

The actual increase of any people, beyond the 
number which may be supported by the natural 
fruits of the earth, and without labor, depends upon 
the energy, industry, and arts, by which the means 
of subsistence may be multiplied. Savages, indolent 
and thriftless, do not increase at all, and it is only 
civilization which renders a dense population possi- 



119 

ble. It is under the operation of these principles, 
that where two races are thrown into contact, or in- 
termingled in one society, the inferior diminishes and 
disappears. The superior race multiplies faster, be- 
cause it increases more rapidly its command over 
the means of subsistence. 

The capacity of all races of men to increase, look- 
ing merely to the power of procreation, is great and 
uniform. But to be stationary in numbers is the fact 
most commonly observed, and may be said to be the 
ordinary rule. What is called the natural increase 
of the species, is merely the power to increase if 
subsistence is provided, and, in fact, never occurs 
when the race is in the condition usually denom- 
inated the state of nature. Any increase which 
is observed, arises from improved methods of indus- 
try, from accumulating capital, and from a perfected 
social order. While an increase of numbers may 
therefore be said to be natural, so far as it depends 
upon the power of procreation; it is in fact more 
truly artificial, because it depends also on the degree 
of civilization, and of the resulting command over 
the means of subsistence. It is the exception, and 
not the rule, in the history of mankind. 

What is there about the negro to exempt him 
from the operation of these principles, or what is 
there in his history to induce us to believe that they 
are not fully applicable to him ? In the West India 
Islands and in South America, where the climate is 
supposed to be most congenial to them, the race of 
free negroes is either stationary or diminishing. In 
St. Domingo, where the freed negro has existed the 
longest time, and in the most considerable numbers, 



120 

the diminution in sixty years is believed to be one- 
half. In the twenty-five years in which he has 
existed free in Jamaica, if his numbers are kept up, 
which is doubtful, it is only by importations. Cuba 
presents no exception, the increase of free negroes 
being fully accounted for by manumissions. In the 
United States, the free negroes may have gained by 
natural increase, but far less than either the slaves 
or the whites. In the slave States, the per centage 
of increase from 1830 to 1840 was only eighteen and 
one-half per cent. ; from 1840 to 1850, only ten and 
one-half per cent. ; being, in the whole twenty years, 
about one-half of the increase of the slaves, and less 
than one-half of the increase of the whites. Manu- 
missions, which had been frequent before, in conse- 
quence of the low price of slaves, have been sensibly 
diminished since 1830, and of late years are in several 
States permitted only on condition of removal. It 
is thus that the small gain of the free negroes, ten 
and one-half per cent, from 1840 to 1850, may be 
taken as the most correct measure of their natural 
increase. In the free States, from 1840 to 1850, the 
increase of the free negroes was fifteen per cent., 
which is about one-half of the increase of the 
whites, after deducting what may be computed to 
be the gain of the whites by immigration. In Xew 
England, from 1840 to 1850, the colored race in- 
creased less than two per cent. Since 1810, the 
colored race in the free States, including free and 
slaves together, has increased, in the decade ending 
1820, fifteen and one-half per cent. ; in the decade 
ending 1830, fifteen and one-half per cent. ; in the 
decade ending 1840, twenty-two per cent. ; in the 



121 

decade ending 1850, fourteen and one-half per cent. ; 
the rate in each instance being far below that of the 
whites. In the free States, it is necessary to take 
the increase of the colored race as a whole, as, under 
the termination of slavery in several of them by law, 
considerable numbers have been, from time to time, 
transferred from the slave to the free category. 

It is impossible to determine, with exact accuracy, 
what the natural increase of the colored race in the 
free States has been. It is suggested, on very prob- 
able grounds, that it is apparently diminished by 
the transfer to the white column in the census, of the 
colored blood, where its trace is imperceptible, or 
where those concerned, in cases in which the colored 
trace is perceptible, but not marked, choose to be 
reckoned as white. If there is, in this way, an ap- 
parent loss to the negro stock, and an apparent gain 
to the white stock, it is small. The emigration of 
the colored race from the free States is merely nom- 
inal. To Liberia, down to 1852, it had only 
amounted to 457 persons. On the other hand, 
there has been a constant addition to the colored 
race in the free States, not by the immigration of 
free negroes from the South, the negro race being 
emphatically a non-emigrating race ; but by fugitive 
slaves, and by negroes emancipated and removed by 
their masters, the removal being a matter of human- 
ity in some instances, but of late years being made 
compulsory by the laws of many of the slave States. 
How much of the increase of the colored race in the 
free States consists of these additions, is a matter of 
conjecture, more or less probable, but is certainly 
large. Thus in New England, from 1810 to 1850, 



122 

the increase was only fifteen and one-half per cent., 
while in the same period it was nearly twelve hun- 
dred per cent., or from 3,310 to 41,977, in the States 
of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, all bordering upon 
the slave States, and into all of which large numbers 
of emancipated slaves are known to have been car- 
ried. It is notorious that the negroes of the Atlantic 
free States have not emigrated to Ohio, Indiana, and 
Illinois. The negro is rarely an emigrant, and it is 
even difficult to drive him from the place of his 
birth, as the slave States have found, after trying 
the experiment very thoroughly. The census of 
1850 found eighty-one and one-half per cent, of the 
free colored population, living in the States in which 
they were born ; and if an allowance is made for re- 
movals which were compulsory, in order to effect 
emancipations, and for fugitive slaves, the number 
of voluntary removals is reduced to an insignificant 
figure. The great increase of free negroes in Ohio, 
Indiana, and Illinois, being explained by their in- 
troduction for the purposes of emancipation, or as 
fugitives from slavery; their small rate of increase in 
New England, where their introduction for such or 
any other reasons does not take place to any appre- 
ciable extent, may be taken as an approximate 
measure of their increase by procreation in all the 
free States. If it be said that their slow increase in 
ISTew England is exceptional, and attributable to a 
climate specially uncongenial to the negro; the an- 
swer is ready, that, slow as it is, it is greater than it 
is in Jamaica, or Cuba, or St. Domingo. 

In any probable view of the subject, the natural 
increase of the free negroes in the United States 



123 

must be estimated at a very low rate. The idea, 
that the negro possesses a prolific vigor which is 
strong enough to override all the laws of political 
economy, may alarm the careless, but will not bear 
examination. The picture so often drawn of the 
free negro, swarming and multiplying like the frogs 
of Egypt, and devouring the substance of the white 
race, is a fancy sketch, not only unsupported by 
observation, but demonstrably impossible to be 
realized. 

In truth, if free negroes were what those who 
seek to terrify us with predictions of their indefinite 
multiplication, describe them to be, they would 
speedily become extinct, instead of increasing. If 
th ey were ' ( idle, " " dissolute, " " thieves, ' ' ' 'prostitutes, ' ' 
"beggars," " overrunning jails and alms-houses," u a 
depraved and worthless population," it is quite certain 
that the calamity of their presence, if great, would 
be only short-lived. Thieves, prostitutes, and rob- 
bers, do not multiply their species. The ranks of 
the worthless and dissolute are kept good by recruits, 
and not by natural increase. To rear families re- 
quires some degree of industry and forethought. It 
is precisely because the free negroes are not what 
those who would alarm us represent them to be, 
that they are able to keep their numbers good, and 
even perhaps slightly to augment them. Their 
intellectual capacity is certainly less than that of the 
Caucasian race, but they have many valuable quali- 
ties, and have a capacity to be useful in many 
employments. Whenever, instead of epithets and 
declamation, we have had exact statistics of their 
condition, education, occupations, and acquisitions 



124 

of property ; the picture, under all the disadvantages 
of their social position, is both creditable for the 
present and promising for the future. 

But whatever opinion the reader may have upon 
these questions of fact, as to the actual or possible 
condition of the free negro ; it is altogether certain 
that no greater number of that race can exist in any 
community, than can vindicate their right to exist in 
it, by that best of all tests, the capacity to obtain the 
means of subsistence. Upon the whole, and in a 
long period of time, there will be no more of them 
than can make themselves useful, or, in other words, 
can render services which will command the means of 
support. Individuals may live by crime or charity, 
but these are exceptional cases. Races of men are 
not kept alive and perpetuated, and still less multi- 
plied, in that way. 

In any view of the subject, there is nothing to 
excite alarm, in any rational apprehension, in respect 
to the increase of free negroes. Who will deny 
them the small and humble space they occupy ? If 
they are an inferior race, and they certainly are so, 
this affords no justification for oppressing them, but 
a reason, rather, for treating them with kindness 
and protection. In his moral constitution, the negro 
is docile, affectionate, patient under injuries, grate- 
ful for benefits, and contented. The free negro, in 
his present numbers in this country, is not a danger- 
ous member of society, nor is any increase of his 
numbers possible, in the condition of freedom, 
which would make him so. The multiplication of 
the negro in the condition of slavery, is the true 
point of danger. 



125 

In respect to the free States, especially, it is 
impossible that any considerable augmentation of 
the number of free negroes within their limits can 
occur. That such augmentation will not arise by 
natural increase, is proved by all sound reasoning, 
and by a long and conclusive experience. As little 
to be apprehended is that influx and invasion of 
Africans from the Southern States, so often threat- 
ened as the certain result of their partial or total 
liberation from the condition of slavery. Who ever 
before, or in any discussion except this of slavery, 
in which vast pecuniary interests stimulate the prop- 
agation of the most monstrous absurdities, main- 
tained it to be possible that a superior race could be 
invaded, overrun, and displaced, by an inferior race? 
By what processes or methods is it conceivable that 
the blacks of Virginia, if assumed to be liberated, 
could ever get a foothold in considerable numbers 
in communities constituted industrially and socially 
as those of Pennsylvania, New York, and New 
England ? That they could not be forced to emigrate 
by anything short of compulsory deportation, is 
shown in the history of the past; and compulsory 
deportation would not be attempted, and, if attempt- 
ed, would certainly be rendered impossible by coun- 
tervailing legislation on the part of the free States. 
But assuming that no legal barriers should be inter- 
posed, and that large bodies of the liberated negroes 
of Virginia should desire to emigrate to the free 
States, the thing is ludicrously impossible. Superior 
races may invade inferior ones by arms, or by indus- 
try and arts, but the converse will not happen until 
all existing laws of politics and of political economy 



126 

are revolutionized. It is not the negro, and e 

cially it is not the negro just liberated from the 
debasing influences of slavery, who can displace from 
employment the skillful artisans and intelligent 
Laborers of the Northern State-. 

If. then, it is proved by a long and uniform expe- 
rience, in all parts of the United States, that the 
natural increase of free negroes, if there is any such 
increase at all, is inconsiderable; if it be shown that 
this failure to increase is no accidental feet, but is 
governed by unchangeable laws which control the 
relations of superior and inferior races ; it results that 
the enormous multiplication of Virginia blacks, 
which has been pointed out, is due solely to the 
domestic slave trade, it being impossible that they 
could now exist in the form of free negroes, or, 
without the domestic slave trade, in the form of 
slaves. Without the domestic slave trade, the 
Virginians would never maintain a single slave 
beyond the number for which profitable employment 
could be found; as that number was reached, and 
there was a tendency to exceed it, the prices of 
slaves would fall, and the breeding and rearing of 
slaves would be diminished. It is not a necessary 
conclusion that a general emancipation would result 
from this condition of things, because grown slaves 
would still possess a certain value. They would 
not be raised at all. unless this was so. Manumis- 
sions, however, would be more common, and by the 
combined operation of manumissions and of the 
diminished number reared, the stock of slaves would 
be kept at the standard indicated economically by 
the range of remunerative employment, and control- 



127 

led by this consideration, that unless slaves were 
worth rearing, slavery would cease to exist. "Under 
any aspect, and however results in other respects 
might be modified by circumstances, this much is 
clear, that no more slaves would be held in Virginia 
as such, than their masters could profitably retain ; 
and that as the blacks passed from the category of 
slaves to the category of free negroes, their multi- 
plication would cease. 

It is not certain that the free negroes in this 
country, now stationary, or nearly so, so far as nat- 
ural increase is concerned, would not begin to dimin- 
ish from the moment when any considerable addition 
should be made to their number. It is quite clear, 
indeed, that this would happen in the present con- 
dition of their intelligence and training in industrial 
arts, there being only a limited number of positions 
in the economy of social life which they can fill. If 
however, their condition in these respects is improva- 
ble, as there is reason to believe that it is, so that 
greater numbers could be maintained; that, of itself, 
is no cause for regret. God forbid that permission 
to live should be refused, or begrudged, to any hu- 
man being, or race, who shall establish, by industry 
and capacity, their right to live. And if to any race, 
is it to the African that we dare to deny the per- 
formance of the common duties of humanity ? Shall 
prejudice of color, pride of superior intellect, or dis- 
dain for ignorance and poverty, be strong enough to 
overpower, in generous minds, all sentiments, both 
of compassion and justice, towards a people upon 
whom such grievous wrongs have been heaped by 
our ancestors, and even by ourselves ? Is it only to 



128 

them, with their multiplied claims upon us, that we 
shall refuse a welcome to the free and unembarrassed 
competition of life, to take their chance with us and 
others, and to achieve such destiny as capacity and 
merit and fortune may conduct to ? Are our doors, 
thrown open to all other peoples, and tongues, and 
conditions of men, from every clime and from every 
quarter of the globe, to be closed only to a race 
which has the right to demand redress from us for 
centuries of accumulated oppression ? 



CHAPTER IX. 

The argument for slavery, as being necessary for the multiplication 
of negroes. Carrying slaves into new regions not favorable to 
their personal comfort, but the contrary. Cruelties of the domes- 
tic slave trade. 

It is seen that in this country, and in the presence 
of its white population, the negro will multiply only 
in the condition of slavery, just as certain animals 
are multiplied by domestication, or servitude, and 
in some latitudes cannot exist at all in any other 
state. Upon this predicament of fact, is founded an 
appeal for African slavery in the interest of human- 
ity, as the only means of perpetuating a race, with 
the guardianship of which we find ourselves in- 
trusted. 

"The antagonism of races," says one, (Resources 
of the Southland West, vol. 2, page 203,) "is work- 
' ing itself out in every instance where two races 
' are put in collision, by the quicker or slower ex- 



129 

* tinction of the inferior and feebler race. The only 
4 exceptions to this rule which the world has ever 
4 seen, are where the beneficent system of serfdom 
4 (?'. e., slavery) has come to the rescue and protection 
1 of the weaker race. * * * One only door 

* seems opened by nature to prevent such a catas- 
4 trophe ; and that is, through the beneficent system 
4 of slavery." 

This view of the subject is elaborately enforced in 
the Review of Debates in the Virginia Legislature, 
by the late Mr. Dew, Professor in "William and 
Mary's College, and by Chancellor Harper of South 
Carolina, in his address heretofore quoted in this 
work. The benevolent Chancellor says : 

"The care of man gives the boon of existence to 
4 myriads [of domestic animals] who would never 
'otherwise have enjoyed it; and the enjoyment of 
4 their existence is better provided for while it lasts. 
4 * * * It belongs to the being of superior faculties 
i to judge of the relations which shall subsist be- 
4 tween himself and the inferior animals. * * * On 
4 the very same foundation, with the difference only 
4 of circumstances and degree, rests the right of the 
4 civilized and cultivated man over the savage and 
4 ignorant. * * * By enslaving only, could he have 
4 preserved them. * * * It is a refined philoso- 
4 phy, and utterly false in its application to general 
4 nature, or to the mass of human kind, which 
4 teaches that existence is not the greatest of boons, 
4 and worthy of being preserved even under the most 
4 adverse circumstances. * * * The African slave 
4 trade has given, and will give, the boon of existence 
4 to millions and millions in our country, who would, 
4 otherwise, never have enjoyed it, and the enjoyment 
4 of their existence is better provided for while it 
4 lasts." 

The fact that the negro, in the condition of free- 



130 

dom, would only multiply slowly, if at all, in the 
United States, and might possibly become extinct, 
seems to be agreed, and is unquestionably true. 
But that the multiplication of the negro is, in itself, 
sufficiently desirable to justify slavery as a means of 
multiplying him, is not unanimously maintained, 
even at the South. Thus, Mr. Tucker, of Virginia, 
in his Notes on the Progress of the United States, 
(1843,) says: 

" Since the emancipated class are found to increase 
' more slowly than either the slaves or the whites, 
< they [the Legislature] ought to encourage, rather 
' than check, private manumission." 

The philosophy of the Virginian, if of a less ex- 
quisite humanity, in respect to the African race, than 
that of the South Carolinian, is vastly more sensible. 

If it be desirable to preserve and increase inferior 
and feebler races of men, it may undoubtedly be 
done by means of domestication, or slavery. In 
that humanity, however, which can delight itself in 
contemplating the multiplication of slaves, senti- 
mentality must be a much larger ingredient than 
sound reason. If an increase of the human species, 
looking merely to the animal enjoyment of life, and 
without reference to social condition, affords pleasure 
to the benevolent mind; it must be recollected that 
slaves can only exist by the displacement of, or to 
the exclusion of, vastly greater numbers of freemen. 
Under similar circumstances, in respect to climate 
and natural resources, the density of slaveholding 
populations is far less than that of non-slaveholding 
populations, and the aggregate of human life is as 
much diminished as are its true enjoyments. This 



131 

is uniformly observed as a matter of fact, and results 
from principles which are easily understood. Popu- 
lation is proportioned to the means of subsistence, 
and these depend upon industry, thrift, the progress 
of the arts, and the improvement of morals, all of 
which it is the essential nature of negro slavery 
to destroy. Undoubtedly, slavery may multiply 
negroes in this country, but only by diminishing the 
number of whites in a vastly greater ratio. 

The extinction of the "inferior" and "feebler" 
races, in presence of those which are more vigorous, 
is no "catastrophe " but occurs gradually and peace- 
fully, according to laws which nature manifests 
throughout not only the animal but the vegetable 
world. The system of slavery, which prevents this 
extinction, is no scheme of "nature" but a violation 
of all moral and natural laws. 

Under some circumstances, the question may be 
between a slave population and none at all, but not 
during the present century has choice been so nar- 
rowed in any part of this country. If the States 
upon the Gulf of Mexico had kept out the Virginia 
negroes, they would have had instructed and intelli- 
gent Europeans in their stead, without cost to them- 
selves, and without diminishing that species of 
immigration into the Northern States. Their cli- 
mates would have attracted large numbers, who 
have either not crossed the Atlantic at all, or have 
gone to Mexico and South America, where conge- 
nial and accustomed seasons counterbalance the dis- 
advantages of a less stable political organization. 

Akin to the suggestion made in the name of 
humanity, that slavery should be maintained as a 



- 

me&. - f multiplying th 

suggest 

ilhout R 

3 improved by all 
L States States from 

lusted soils 1 - - 

_ 3G :ned to be in proper: 
- - - - - hie 

of himself and 
removi a 
_ 
Wl - "-^ n 

paid _ _ .ant women and 

_ 

3 leas £ 

upon h 

3 easily ex- 
is in :.ual 

- 
_ 

d for 
- -ieh has 

It is 

se mil- 

- 

133,1 - 

1 TinreT _ n the . 

b v the t " - - 



133 

sleep and rest. In onr own euuliy, : ; it n Mary- 
land and Virginia that slaves fare the w 
in the susrar resrions of Louisiana and Texas, where 
the scale of pre- fitei .. sfs :he calcular; 
them np in a given number- of years as a maner of 
economy ? Is it not notorious, that the Btel :<»n 
the Gulf of Mexico, in which forced labor is re- 
productive to those who own it. are made osc 
the northern slave States, not merely as markets in 
which to dispose of slaves as a matter of profit, but 
as a Botany Bay furnished to their hands, to which 
their slaves are sent by way of punishment ! 

The truth is. it is the temptation of great, imme- 
diate profits, which, more than anything else. ; 
slaves to be overworked, jnst as beasts of burden are 
overworked under similar eireumsr: meea. As the 
remuneration for a single years labor, vigorously 
pushed, bears a higher proportion to the calculated 
value of a whole life: just in that ratio, the induce- 
ment diminishes to look mainly to the preservation 
of life, and the inducement inere:> si I look mainly 
to the present use. Or. in other words, the time 
within which men can afford to use slaves up. is 
shortened, exactly as the arinual profit reach - 
higher per rentage of their original c ifl 

In his u Mm • V Si Chancellor 

Harper. 01 South Carolina, says : 

" If the income of every plantation of the Southern 

• States were permanently reduced one-half, or much 

• more than that, it would not take one jot from the 

• support and comforts of the slaves. And this can 

• never be materially altered, until they shall become 
1 so unprofitable that slavery must oi necessity be 
; abandoned." 



134 

This view of the subject, that the support and 
comforts of the slaves are always kept at the mini- 
mum consistent with their vigor and availability, 
and are not reduced with diminished incomes, be- 
cause incapable of reduction without abandoning 
the system altogether; effectually disposes of the 
suggestions, that they would be any worse off, if 
confined to old States and old plantations, or would 
be any better off, by transfer to new regions. It 
shows that the law of the interest of the master, 
forever forbidding their rise above the condition 
necessary to their profitable use, follows them 
whithersoever they are carried. But, although ac- 
curate to this extent, and so far as he goes, Chan- 
cellor Harper fails to notice, that while the support 
and comforts of the slave are not susceptible of 
material diminution ; the severity of his labor is and 
must be augmented precisely in proportion to the 
profit which the master makes out of it. What the 
slave has most of all things to dread, is an increase 
in his owner's gains ; and he can only hope for his 
liberty, when, by the entire annihilation of his mas- 
ter's gains, the motive to retain him in servitude 
ceases to exist. 

Thus far, the effect of the removal of slaves from 
old States to new States, has been considered upon 
the supposition that they are removed with and by 
their masters, without change of ownership, and in 
company with the families with which they have 
been reared. This sometimes happens, but in a 
majority of instances the removal is effected through 
the instrumentality of the slave trader, and involves 
all the multiplied and unimaginable horrors of the 



135 

domestic slave trade ; that abominable traffic, which 
is the disgrace of our age and country, and in com- 
parison with which, the African slave trade was 
innocent and merciful. The separation of husbands 
and wives, of parents and children, and of brothers 
and sisters; the abrupt severance of all the ties 
which bind human beings to the locality of their 
birth ; the transfer to new masters, strange climates, 
and, it may be, vast distances; exposure upon the 
auction block; all these attend inevitably upon the 
opening of new regions to slavery. The victims are 
not heathen savages, as they were in the foreign 
slave trade, but those who are, to a greater or less 
extent, christianized and civilized, and in whom 
sensibility to moral suffering is cultivated and active. 
If the kidnapped native of Africa may sometimes 
find his condition improved in the hands of new 
masters; humanity can delude itself with no such 
hope in reference to the negroes of our northern 
slave States, who are carried daily in the come gang 
of the slave trader, to wear out an existence in what 
is to them a far-distant world, rendered doubly 
wretched by its contrast with their former lot. The 
whole picture is one of unrelieved misery, without 
palliation, and without possible mitigation. How 
often have we had described to us the helpless terror 
of the slave, when, having been decoyed into some 
place and position to be conveniently taken posses- 
sion of by the slave dealer, he is suddenly informed 
of the fate which awaits him; how often have we 
had described to us the wailings and utter despair 
of families, who wake to find a father, a husband, 
or a son, hurried without warning to a doom, invest- 



136 

ed, perhaps, in their imaginations, with horrors 

greater than even the reality. How often have we 
had described to us the pangs of these separations, 
softened by no adieus, falling sudden and irresisti- 
ble like the thunderbolts of Heaven, and eternal as 
the grave. And yet, what is in so few instances 
described at all, and never described accurately, 
because language, which is an invention of man, 
falls short of the pathos of nature; occurs in this 
country upon a vast scale, and continuously, with 
the tacit connivance of the nation, and while a plain 
power given to Congress by the Constitution, for 
the express purpose of putting an end to it, slumbers 
unused. 

Thus, instead of the imaginary benefit to the slave 
accruing from the opening to slavery of new regions ; 
it is in and by the domestic slave trade, which the 
continued expansion of slavery stimulates, and is 
intended to stimulate, that all the evils of the system 
are aggravated, and all its redeeming features are 
obliterated. When the association of the families 
of masters and of slaves is hereditary, or of long 
continuance, it is easy to conceive of an attachment, 
which on one side softens the sense of bondage, 
while on the other it mitigates the selfishness, and 
tempers the roughness, of arbitrary rule. The most 
pleasing pictures are presented, by those who would 
reconcile us to the institution of slavery, of the 
devotion of slaves to the persons and families of 
their masters, commencing with childhood, and con- 
firmed by ancient habit. If these pictures are some- 
times drawn from the imagination, it is not doubt- 
ful that they are also sometimes drawn from nature. 



137 

They are conformable to what is frequently observed 
in all races under analogous circumstances, and are 
specially probable from the peculiar docility and 
affectionateuess of the negro. It is consoling to 
humanity to be able to believe, that in many 
instances, servitude, thus smoothed and lightened, is 
consistent with a. tolerable measure of physical and 
moral comfort. 

It is the peculiar misfortune and condemnation of 
chattel slavery, as distinguished from those systems 
in which the serf is attached to the soil, that its 
victims are necessarily liable, by the ordinary 
chances of human affairs, to be torn from the asso- 
ciations of birth, early acquaintance, and accustomed 
masters. Change of residence or occupation of the 
owner, the division of estates, forced sales under the 
pressure of debt; these facts are of constant occur- 
rence, and especially the last, because slaveholding, 
by its very nature, nourishes pride and extravagance, 
and is attended by thriftlessness and dilapidation. 
If, in the transfers of slaves, which result from these 
facts, their own well-being is sometimes consulted, 
it oftentimes is not and cannot be. 

How terribly are these inevitable results of chattel 
slavery multiplied and aggravated, where there is a 
constant enlargement of its area, and, as a necessary 
consequence, so long as Congress fails to interpose its 
prohibitory power, the domestic slave trade. What 
before might be said to be occasional and exceptional, 
becomes a permanent system. It may, for example, 
be easily shown, that after a liberal allowance for the 
number of slaves who remove from Virginia in com- 
pany with their masters; there are ten thousands 

6* 



138 

lold annually out of that State to new masters, or 
,o slave traders, and, of course, sold, lfke horses and 
sattle, upon the commercial principle merely, of sell- 
ug to the highest bidder. By what gauge and 
measure shall we undertake to compute the wretch- 
edness of this vast deportation, the ties which are 
broken, or the desolation of those who are left be- 
hind? 

Nor is it to be overlooked, aside altogether from 
the rupture of family ties, the change of owners, and 
the breaking up of old associations, that the transfer 
from an old country to a new one is itself unfavor- 
able to the slave. It is in new regions, where we 
find the most enterprise and activity, that we find 
the most fevered pursuit of wealth, and where the 
restraints, which tend to harmonize its pursuit with 
benignant manners, have the least power. Where 
men have gone, at some sacrifice of comfort, in quest 
of fortune, we shall find it followed with unwonted 
ardor, and with a more than common disregard of 
opposing obstacles. It was a happy touch of nature 
which induced Mrs. Stowe to make Arkansas the 
scene of the most cruel sufferings of Uncle Tom. 
How different is the position of the man who culti- 
vates his paternal acres, with the aid of laborers 
whom he has inherited, from that of the man who 
has gone hundreds of miles to the wilds of Texas, 
for the express object of making the greatest pos- 
sible amount of money in the least possible space of 
time, and whose slaves have been obtained by pur- 
chase. In the secluded plantations of remote fron- 
tiers, men escape those restraints of public opinion, 
which, in older communities, constitute a protection 



139 

to the slave, insufficient, undoubtedly, but still valu- 
able, and most important to be preserved. And, 
without reference to the restraints of public opinion, 
the man who works his slaves, because he has them, 
following the ways and methods of his fathers, and 
not unfrequently controlled by a mere routine, with- 
out calculation, is likely to be a more indulgent 
master, than the man, who, with sharpened cupid- 
ity, has fixed the time within which his crops must 
repay the cost of his laborers, and produce the an- 
ticipated profit which stimulated their purchase. 

Upon the great plantations of the extreme South, 
where the slaves are worked in large gangs, under 
the whip of the overseer, a mass of testimony, over- 
whelming and irrefutable, and which harmonizes 
with the intrinsic probabilities of the case, compels 
us to believe that their lot combines the most toil- 
some drudgery, with the roughest fare, and the fewest 
possible alleviations and indulgences. This is a sad 
condition, even for those who were born in it, and 
never knew a better one. How insupportable, then, 
must it be to those transported thither from the 
farming States of the North ! No error, certainly, 
can be more deplorable, than the belief that slaves 
have anything to gain by the extension of slavery 
under any circumstances, and least of all at the 
present day, when such extension can only be south- 
ward, and for the purpose of being employed in 
tropical cultivation. 

If, however, it was by possibility true that some 
small benefit would accrue to the negro race, from 
permitting the indefinite diffusion of slavery, it 
would be a most lame and impotent justification of 



140 

it. The multiplication of a race of black slaves in 
new regions, to the necessary exclusion of white 
men, involves mischiefs too manifest, too vast, and 
too lasting, to be compensated by any conceivable 
temporary benefit. 

It is a curious illustration of the inconsistency of 
mankind, that those who in one breath assail with 
ridicule the slightest exhibition of sympathy for the 
negro, or of regard for his rights, in the next breath 
put forward the interest of the negro as a sufficient 
justification for the sacrifice of the most vital inter- 
ests of the white race. It is the Virginians and 
South Carolinians, doubters of even the human char- 
acter of the negro, who declare that slavery must be 
maintained, in order that he may exist and multiply; 
and who represent his possible extinction, by being 
remitted to the condition of freedom, as a calamity 
by all means to be averted. It is the Virginians and 
South Carolinians who insist that white men shall 
not occupy our Territories, but that they shall be 
kept open as preserves for slaves, to the end that the 
pleasures of buck negroes may not be curtailed, and 
that negro wenches may breed without let or hin- 
drance. It is the Virginians and South Carolinians, 
who, turning negrophilists, declaim piteously against 
the cruelty of setting bounds to the expansion of the 
black man. It is not to be wondered at, that the 
world listens with incredulity, when an appeal, in 
the interest of humanity to the African, is made 
from such quarters ; or that when the appeal is sub- 
jected to criticism, it proves to be utterly without 
foundation. 



141 
CHAPTER X. 

The introduction of slaves into the States of the extreme South, to 
some extent legislated against by them, and always opposed by 
many of their citizens. Slave trading disreputable at the South. 
The suppression of the domestic slave trade would find supporters 
in all the Southern States. Inter-colonial slave trade prohibited 
by Great Britain in 1824. 

If it be concluded that the domestic slave trade 
is both cruel and opposed to sound policy, it would 
still remain to be considered whether the interests 
and passions, which can be rallied to its support, 
present insuperable obstacles to any attempt to put 
an end to it. Practical men, if they will not wholly 
forego desirable reforms, will at any rate postpone 
their efforts to effect them, until the convenient and 
opportune moment shall have arrived. They will 
reflect that, as Mr. Jefferson said in the last letter 
he is known to have written, public affairs depend 
upon the resolutions of others ; and that those who 
have charge of a good cause, must wait patiently 
until the currents of wind and tide become favorable. 
That they have become so, in the present case, how- 
ever, is sufficiently probable to justify a trial. 

In all the States in which slaves are sold, there 
is an opposition to their introduction, which has 
found expression, from time to time, in legislative 
measures; although in the extreme South, now 
constituting the principal market for slaves, these 
measures have not gone beyond the prohibition of 
their introduction by traders, or for the purpose of 
being sold, and have still permitted their introduc- 



142 

tion by planters for their own use, which has led to 
easy evasions of the laws. 

It may be noticed that in one Southern State, 
(Mississippi,) the prohibition of the domestic slave 
trade has been a matter, not merely of legislation, 
but of express constitutional requirement. The 
Mississippi State Constitution, as revised in 1832, 
contained the following : 

" The introduction of slaves into this State, as 

< merchandise, shall be prohibited, from and after 
' the first day of May, 1833 : Prof idol, That the act- 

< ual settler, or settlers, shall not be prohibited from 
' purchasing slaves in any State in this Union, and 
1 bringing them into this State for their own indi- 
' vidual use, until the year 1845* " 

The power here conferred upon the Legislature, 
to commence in 1845, has never been exercised. 

The prohibition of the introduction of slaves as 
merchandise, was supported by a law passed in 
1837, declaring all notes and bonds given for such 
prohibited merchandise to be absolutely void ; and 
this law, after protracted controversy, has been judi- 
cially sustained. 

Recent discussions in the Legislature of Georgia, 
where such laws exist, have been extensively repub- 
lished in the free States ; and the views of policy 
upon which they depend, are, therefore, familiarly 
known. 

Many Southern economists say, that the error of 
planters is to devote their accumulating capital ex- 
clusively to increasing their negro force, instead of 
to improvements of their land; that occasional high 
prices of crops tempt them to the purchase of slaves 
on credit, at rates which prove ruinous when 



143 

the prices of crops become low ; that slaves cost 
now, and have cost for some time, more than they 
are intrinsically worth; and that the States which 
breed slaves are making exorbitant profits at the 
expense of their customers. 

So far as it is important to those who now hold 
slaves in the Gulf States, to maintain their price 
and value, they will, of course, be opposed to the 
competition of slaves introduced from abroad. 

The present course of things throws upon the 
Gulf States, not merely the increase of their 'own 
slaves, but nearly the entire increase of all the 
slaves in the United States. In this way, the slaves 
have already acquired a preponderance in numbers 
over the whites in Mississippi, and the same thing 
will soon happen in Alabama, where they have 
always been gaining upon the whites. In Georgia, 
their ratio of increase from 1840 to 1850 exceeded 
that of the whites, and the causes which produced 
this result must act hereafter with greater force. If 
Louisiana presents a different appearance, it is be- 
cause of the existence in it of a great commercial 
city, with a large white population, and because the 
peculiar cultivation of Louisiana, that of sugar, is 
enormously destructive of slave life. The tendency 
of things is, in short, to concentrate upon the imme- 
diate shore of the Gulf of Mexico, the great bulk of 
the slave population of the United States ; to give to 
that population a constantly-augmenting preponder- 
ance over the white race ; and to increase the possi- 
bility of such a catastrophe as was witnessed in St. 
Domingo. 

These dangers are not unobserved by reflecting 



144 

men in that region, and are frequently urged by 
them as objections to the domestic slave trade. 
That they have not excited a more general and 
constant attention may be attributed, in part, to the 
fact noticed in Lord Brougham's admirable disqui- 
sition upon the colonial policy of the European 
Powers, that the occupation of the planter is rather 
commercial, than agricultural, in view of the large 
proportion of personal property in the capital in- 
volved, of the ease with which that personal prop- 
erty may be converted or removed, and of the mag- 
nitude of occasional profits. The Southern planter 
is far less interested than the Northern farmer, in the 
permanent welfare of the community in which his 
operations happen to be carried on. He is, to be 
sure, an agriculturist, because land is a necessary 
element in his system of production ; but land is not 
always the largest item in his inventory of stock, 
and he rarely looks to any increase of its price, 
either by its direct improvement, or by the general 
growth and development of the country. The nat- 
ural fertility of his acres is a thing to be worked up 
into money in the shortest possible time. If he 
occasionally admits the idea, that affairs are tending 
to a general overthrow and ruin, he is easily con- 
soled by the belief that there is an abundance of 
time for his own individual escape from the wreck. 
For the present, he knows that he is making money 
out of his negroes ; and he determines to have more 
negroes, from whatever quarter he can obtain them, 
and leave the future to take care of itself. But 
while this is the reasoning of many, and while 
others fail to reason at all, there is still a consider- 



145 

able body of men in the Gulf States who view with 
deep and undisguised apprehension the wholesale 
transfer of slaves into their limits which is going 
on from the northern slave States. 

Of late, a new view of the subject is taken by 
many politicians at the extreme South, namely, that 
the continuance of the domestic slave trade will 
transfer Virginia, Maryland, and Kentucky, to the 
side of the free States, and on that account ought 
to be put an end to by the Gulf States themselves. 
This view is taken by many influential individuals 
and presses. Its precise character will be best 
understood from the following extract from the JSTew 
Orleans Delta, of April 29, 1857: 

"The extreme Southern States have their eyes 
' upon Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri. 
They are watching with the eyes of the Argus — 
watching it as closely as the Scotch did the Cheviot 
' Hills. ****** The remedy is plain enough. 
For example: Maryland has 90,368 slaves; Vir- 
ginia, 472,528; Kentucky, 210,981; Missouri, 
' 87,422. Those States, from their position, have 
' long been regarded as the piquet sentinels of 
c slavery. They may resist the anti-slavery pres- 

* sure, but self-defence should urge the States lying 
6 south of them to look to the permanency of the 
1 institution along the frontier, and render ' assu- 
4 ranee doubly sure.' This can be done by passing 
6 stringent enactments, preventing the four States 
' above named from emptying their slave population, 
c as they are now doing, into the country south of 

* their boundaries. With a slave population of 
' 861,299, to say nothing of the natural increase, 

* in four States containing only an area of 177,412 
« square miles, it is highly improbable that the idea 
6 of emancipation would be tolerated for a moment. 
' Colonization would be out of the question, and the 

1 



146 

< result would be resistance to the death to Northern 
1 aggression. Common danger and common inti 

' would compel Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, and 

< even Missouri, to keep up a permanent alliance 
' with the Carolina-. Tennessee, Arkansas, Georgia, 
' and the Gull" States. In this way. the slave exodus 
1 can he stopped, and the danger averted/' 

If the views attempted to be supported in this 

work are well taken, the New Orleans Delta is 
entirely mistaken in believing that the sale of sla 
out of the northern .-lave States will, of itself, ever 
make them free, or has any tendency to do BO. But 
just bo far as this belief, whether mistaken or • 
prevails at the South, (and it is, in fact, general, 
both at the North and South,) it will tend to recon- 
cile the admirers of slavery to the prohibition of the 
domestic slave trade. 

In the northern slave States, it is by no means 
certain that this prohibition would be universally 
opposed. It is common to think and speak of Vir- 
ginia, as slave-breeding Virginia. The two ideas 
are as indissolubly associated as cotton-spinning 18 
with Manchester, or as cutlery is with Sheffield. 
Nor is it either unnatural, or without foundation, 
because slaves do undoubtedly constitute the prin- 
cipal export of that State, while the opening of mar- 
kets for slaves is the sole object, real and avowed, 
of her public men. Notwithstanding all this, it is 
well known that there are large numbers of persons 
in Virginia who detest the whole business, and 
would be glad to put an end to it. 

The anecdote is often repeated, and very familiar, 
of the indignation with which the late John Ran- 
dolph repelled an offer to purchase one of his slaves. 



147 

This particular anecdote may be a fiction, but it 
truly illustrates a feeling common with slaveholders. 
Of the sales of slaves actually made to slave traders, 
a considerable portion is, doubtless, due to misfor- 
tune and necessity. But ought not slaves to be pro- 
tected against such consequences of the misfortunes 
and necessities of their masters ? 

In all parts of the South, the occupation of the 
slave trader is positively disreputable. Vast num- 
bers of men, who hold slaves, would disdain the idea 
of selling them, without some reference to the char- 
acter of the purchaser; and to dispose of them to 
the slave trader, is, always in substance, and gener- 
ally in form, to send them to the auction block, and 
to the highest bidder. The enormity of such a pro- 
ceeding is flagrant, and it may well be hoped that 
there is no State in the Union, in which, after proper 
discussion, it could be sustained. The faculty of 
taking their slaves being still left to the citizens of 
the northern slave States, when they see fit to re- 
move into other States, the prohibition of the do- 
mestic slave trade would only terminate a traffic, in 
which few of them participate, and many of them 
secretly deplore, or openly condemn. 

The citizens of Virginia indignantly deny that 
they breed and rear slaves for the purpose of selling 
them. Not only do those who interpose this denial, 
do so, in the vast majority of cases, with a conscious- 
ness of truth ; but, perhaps, in no single instance can 
it be truly affirmed, that any individual slave is raised 
for the purpose of being sold. The determination 
to rear slaves is formed and executed this year, while 
the act of selling may not take place until twenty 



148 

years hence. The two things are probably never 
resolved upon and consummated, as parts of one 
plan. The fallacy of the denial interposed by the 
people of Virginia, consists in this, that although 
no one slave may be raised with a special view to 
his sale, yet the entire business of raising slaves is 
carried on with reference to the price of slaves, and 
solely in consequence of the price of slaves ; and this 
price depends, as they well know, solely upon the 
domestic slave trade. Of the men who deny for 
themselves individually the fact of raising slaves for 
the purpose of selling them, too many make no 
scruple in insisting upon markets to keep up the 
price of slaves. The well-known lamentation of a 
successful candidate for the Governorship of Vir- 
ginia, uttered without rebuke before a Virginia au- 
dience, that the closing of the mines of California 
to slave labor, had prevented the price of an able- 
bodied negro man from rising to ^.ve thousand dol- 
lars, is only a single example of the freedom and 
publicity with which the domestic slave trade is 
advocated in that State. 

The King of Dahomey, on a certain occasion, 
admitted that he took captives in war, and that he 
sold into slavery the captives so taken ; he admitted 
that the sale of slaves afforded him his princpal rev- 
enue ; but he denied that he ever went to war for 
the purpose of procuring captives to be sold as 
slaves, and for the truth of his denial, he vouched 
his own honor and the honor of all his ancestors. 
The King of Dahomey, however, has found it im- 
possible to allay the suspicions of mankind; and it 
will be equally impossible for Virginia, so long as 



149 

the selling of slaves is her principal business, to 
avoid the imputation that she breeds them for sale, 
and especially when so many of her citizens do not 
scruple to avow it. 

In the discussion in the Virginia Legislature in 
1832, Mr. Brodnax (January 19) said: 

"It is not the domestic demand for slave labor 
' which has ever graduated their price here, but the 
'foreign demand. Their labor is infinitely more 
< productive on the sugar and rice and cotton 
' plantations of the South and "West, than it can 
' ever be rendered in Virginia, and consequently 
4 their value here must very much depend on the 
4 demand there. No man could, from mere pecu- 
4 niary considerations, afford to give $500 for a slave, 
4 to be worked on an ordinary Virginia plantation." 

In the same discussion, Mr. Gholson (January 18) 
said: 

"Our slaves constitute the largest portion of our 
4 wealth, and, by their value, regulate the price of 
4 nearly all the property we possess. Their value, 
4 on the other hand, is regulated by the demand for 
4 it in the Western markets ; and any measures 
4 which would close those markets to us, would 
4 essentially impair our wealth and prosperity. * * * 
4 Its value now is frequently affected to the extent of 
4 one-fourth by fluctuations in the Western markets." 

This corresponds with a statement made about 
the same time, by the late Judge Upshur, that the 
announcement of a law of Louisiana, restricting 
the importation of slaves, depreciated their price in 
Virginia twenty-five per cent. 

It is, therefore, not to be disguised that there is 
in the northern slave States a powerful interest, 
which will rally, without shame, to defend this 
odious traffic ; and its violence may be expected to 



150 

be in proportion to its wickedness. Those who have 
deliberately made up their minds to defy the moral 
condemnation of the whole civilized world, will 
fight desperately in a desperate cause. But while 
all this is unfortunately true, it is equally certain 
that in those same States large numbers may be 
rallied on the other side; and even should they 
prove to be in the minority, they would be formi- 
dable in moral weight, and in the justice of their 
cause. The abolition of the domestic slave trade is 
a measure which could be advocated with effect 
from the hustings in every Southern State, because 
it strikes at what is admitted by slaveholders them- 
selves to be an abuse and a scandal. There is, 
perhaps, not a single Southern State which has not 
legislated in some form to restrain it. Slavery may 
be a popular institution in that quarter, but slave 
trading is not so, and can never be made so. It is 
an assailable point. The defences are weak, and 
the defenders are few. 

Is it probable that any national party would be 
found bold enough to inscribe upon its banner the 
upholding of the domestic slave trade? Is it prob- 
able that any National Convention, even should its 
session be holden at the city of Charleston, South 
Carolina, would venture to incorporate into its 
platform such a plank as that? If, on a recent 
occasion, politicians were found to be so nervously 
sensitive in respect to the foreign slave trade, and 
so ostentatiously emphatic in their repudiation of it, 
is it probable that they will be found ready to 
shoulder the weight of a traffic, admitted on all 
hands to be in every respect more odious? 



151 

Iu 1824, the Parliament of Great Britain (Act 5 
George IV, caput 113) prohibited the inter-colonial 
slave trade to the British Colonies, with a carefully- 
guarded exception in respect to household servants, 
and the farther exception of an authority continued 
to 1829, to the King in Council, to permit by special 
license the transportation of slaves from one Colony 
to another, under certain circumstances, and pro- 
vided it was made to appear "that such removal is 
essential to the welfare of the slaves proposed to be so 
removed.'" And not only did this act prohibit the 
inter-colonial slave trade, but it provided, also, that 
where one Colonial Government embraced several 
islands, slaves should not be transported from one 
island to another, except by the proprietor himself, 
and u for the purpose of cultivating any estate or plant- 
ation belonging to such proprietor" and then only 
after obtaining from the Colonial Governor u a license 
for such removal, specifying therein the special cause 
thereof " 

This legislation, so worthy of imitation, was in- 
duced by all the considerations which had carried 
through the prohibition of the foreign slave trade, 
reinforced by additional ones not less strong. 
While it invaded no right of the owners of slaves, 
it tended to diminish the rupture of family ties 
among the slaves, to render transfers of ownership 
less common, and, so far as it went, to change a 
chattel servitude into the less obnoxious form of 
predial servitude. 

The abolition of the domestic slave trade in this 
country would cut up by the roots the industrial 
and political connection of the slave-breeding with 



152 

the slave-working States; a connection which, in 
all its aspects, is full of mischief. It would leave 
the system of slavery to stand or fall, in each State, 
upon its own economical advantages within each 
State. It would diminish the total increase of 
slaves, and would save the Gulf States from being 
overwhelmed by the black flood which is now set- 
ting upon them. It would speedily and peacefully 
terminate slavery in the whole tier of northern slave 
States. It would extinguish the motive which now 
instigates the acquisition of foreign territories, to 
serve as new areas for the employment of slave 
labor; which acquisition is now pressed upon the 
Government as a leading policy, to the manifest 
hazard of our external peace. It would terminate 
slavery agitation, by withdrawing that subject from 
the arena of national contests, and leaving it to be 
settled by each State for itself. It would make sla- 
very a State institution merely, and save the country 
from any further disturbance from it, in matters of 
national policy, foreign and domestic. It would 
end a traffic which is demoralizing and disgraceful. 
And, above all, it is demanded by humanity and by 
justice. 



153 



CHAPTER XI. 

America settled during the first three centuries chiefly by negroes. 
European immigration inconsiderable until recently. The prob- 
ability of the further territorial expansion of slavery in the United 
States considered. The high price of slaves an impediment to this 
expansion. Within its present limits, slavery will not be crowded 
for a long time. 

At the epoch of the discovery of America, the 
population of Europe was small, and it could only- 
make scanty contributions of people to the New 
"World ; and as it was itself just emerging from a 
state of barbarism, it could not extend to new regions 
any elevated or enlightened civilization. 

Slavery was one of the established systems of that 
period, and the holding of heathen slaves enjoyed 
the full sanction of the church. And it had so hap- 
pened, that the value of the negro in the condition 
of servitude had been long tried, especially in Spain 
and Portugal, and was well understood. 

What has occurred in America, was, under all the 
circumstances, inevitable. Incalculable resources 
existed in the mine and in the soil, but by whose 
hands could they be .developed? Where it was 
practicable to enslave the native people of the coun- 
try, their physical organization was unequal to the 
forced labors imposed upon them, and they perished 
speedily from the face of the earth. Europe was 
itself sparsely populated. A few, under the stim- 
ulus of religious zeal, or adventurous spirit, tried 
the voyage (then one of months instead of weeks) 
across the Atlantic; while others, but still few, sub- 
mitted to the expatriation as tlje commuted punish- 



154 

ment of their crimes. The people who could subdue 
and cultivate the New "World, existed only in Africa. 
Their number was indefinitely large ; and not only 
did no existing moral and religious scruples forbid 
their coerced appropriation to that work, but it was 
considered rather to be in the safe line of religious 
duty, to subject the negro heathen to Christian bap- 
tism and Christian masters. 

It is oftentimes loosely said, that America has 
been settled by the European races, and different 
portions are distinguished, as settled by the English, 
French, Spanish, and Portuguese. The truth really 
is, that America, including its islands, has been set- 
tled chiefly from Africa, and by negroes; and it is 
only in our own immediate times, that its coloniza- 
tion by Europeans has been commenced upon a scale 
of any magnitude. Prior to the commencement of 
the present century, the number of negroes brought 
hither had probably exceeded the whole number of 
Europeans of all nationalities, who had emigrated 
hither, twenty-fold, or even more; and down to 
within less than twenty years ago, the African slave 
trade still brought in more people than did voluntary 
white immigration. 

Writing in 1751, Dr. Benjamin Franklin says that 
the then computed number of English in North 
America was one million, and that the immigra- 
tion from England was thought to have amounted 
to eighty thousands. If Dr. Franklin had exclusive 
reference to the "English," as his language implies, 
there should be added to the estimate a proportion- 
ate amount for the immigration of other nationalities, 
which would not greatly augment it. The immigra- 



155 

tion down to the period of the Revolutionary War 
may possibly have been larger, but still could not 
have been great. 

JSTo official accounts were kept, prior to 1819, of 
the number of foreigners arriving in the United 
States. Mr. Brownel, in his History of Emigration, 
fixes upon two hundred and fifty thousands, as the 
highest possible number which can be computed to 
have arrived between the close of the Revolutionary 
War and 1819. Mr. Brownel says: 

"Mr. Samuel Blodgett, a statistician of more than 
4 ordinary research and accuracy, wrote, in 1806, 
4 while every fact in regard to immigration was 
4 fresh in the minds of the people, that from ' the 
4 best records and estimates at present obtainable,' 
4 the immigrants arriving in this country did not 
4 average, for the ten years from 1784 to 1794, more 
4 than 4,000 per annum. 

"During 1794, 10,000 persons were estimated to 
4 have arrived in the United States from foreign 
* countries. 

"In 1818, Dr. Adam Seybert, member of the 
' House of Representatives from Pennsylvania, in 
4 his exceedingly- valuable ' Statistical Annals ' of 
4 the United States, wrote to the following effect: 
4 'Though we admit that 10,000 foreigners may have 
4 arrived in the United States in 1794, we cannot 
4 allow that they did so, in an equal number, in any 
4 preceding or subsequent year, until 1817 ; ' and he 
4 assumes that 6,000 persons arrived in the United 
4 States from foreign countries in each year from 
4 1790 to 1810 ; to him, and to the authorities he 
4 consulted, this average seemed a generous one." 

In 1792, according to the report made to the King 
of Spain by the Conde de Revillagigudo, Mexico, 
exclusive of the Intendencies of Vera Cruz and 
Guadalaxara, contained a total population of 



156 

4,483,529, of whom 7,904 were Europeans, and 
677,458 were Creoles of European blood. The 
excluded Intendencies contained, in 1803, a total 
population of 786,500, and probably a greater pro- 
portion of European stock. These results corres- 
pond substantially with those arrived at in 1803 by 
Humboldt. They imply a very small European 
immigration into Mexico. 

At the commencement of the present century, the 
general statement commonly made by geographers 
was, that the number of whites in Mexico equalled 
the number of whites in the whole of South America. 
As late as 1819, Bonnycastle computed the whites 
in Brazil at only 500,000, and the negroes at four 
times as many. In 1761, more than two centuries 
after the settlement of Brazil by the Portuguese, 
Edmund Burke, in his "Settlements in America," 
says that the negroes there outnumbered the whites 
ten to one. 

Upon the whole, it would not appear that the 
total European emigration to America, during the 
first three centuries after its discovery, exceeded 
half a million. 

In reference to the number of negroes taken in 
Africa for transportation to America, the Encyclo- 
pedia Americana (1851) says it has been "calculated 
' to amount during the last three centuries to above 
< forty millions, of whom fifteen or twenty per cent. 
* die on the passage." 

In 1840, the estimates of the number taken for 
transportation ranged from 150,000 to 250,000. 

When it is considered that the stock of negroes in 
the United States is due mainly to natural increase, 



157 

- 
and not to importation, and contrast these vast 
importations with the comparatively small number 
of negroes now existing in other parts of America; 
it is seen how immense a sacrifice of human life has 
been made, to enable the civilized world to be 
supplied at cheap prices with sugar, rum, and coffee. 

Within the last twenty years, European emigra- 
tion to America has been large, and rapidly increas- 
ing. 

The following table of the foreign immigration 
(nearly all of it European) into the United States 
since 1819, made up from official registers kept at 
the custom-houses, is taken from Brownel's History 
of Emigration : 

Period of years. Number. 

During 10 years, ending Sept. 30, 1829, 128,502 

" 10J " " Dec. 31, 1839, 538,381 

" 9f " " Sept. 30, 1849, 1,427,337 

6J- " " Dec. 31, 1855, 2,118,404 

European emigration to other parts of America 
has been increasing of late years, although perhaps 
not so rapidly as to the United States. It is under- 
stood to be large to Brazil, since the extinction of 
the slave trade there in 1850. The people of Europe 
are increasing in numbers, and in the command of 
the means of emigrating. The voyage across the 
Atlantic is being improved, in respect to speed, 
safety, cost, and comfort, and all the inducements 
to emigration are increased. That its aggregate 
amount will continue to enlarge, in the absence of 
causes not now foreseen, would seem to be certain, 
although the proportion of it directed upon the 



158 

• 

United States may diminish. The time is probably 

not distant, when the European stock will be pre- 
dominant in numbers in South America, as the 
other races there, native and imported, are either 

stationary or declining. 

In short, considering the time of the discovery of 
America, the inviting fields for labor presented in 
it, and the difficulty, if not impossibility, of supply- 
ing this labor, except from Africa, the slave trade to 
this continent was an inevitable fact. It was sus- 
tained by interests wide and strong, and has yielded 
only slowly and reluctantly to the changed opinions 
of mankind. In an order and progress of things, 
dictated by irresistible causes, it was the mission of 
the negro to furnish the chief labor of the New 
World, until, in the fullness of time, its different 
portions have been and shall be enabled to pass suc- 
cessively to the higher and nobler civilization of 
freedom. 

We are now, at length, in the midst of a new and 
better epoch. The population in America of Euro- 
pean extraction has grown so large, and the ac< 5- 
sions to it bv immigration are so vast, that we can 
begin to see that the mission of the negro here is 
nearly completed, and that the limits of his possible 
expansion may be computed. In fifty years, the 
white races now in the United States, and their de- 
scendants, will number more than one hundred mil- 
lions. "While it is impossible to predict exactly the 
march of this great multitude, or to define precisely 
the regions it will occupy, it is easy to see that the 
negro in Xorth America must be pressed into 
narrow bounds. And it is in North America only 



159 

that he is formidable, because it is here only that 
his numbers are increasing; the African race in 
South America and in the West Indies being either 
stationary or declining, except so far as it is kept up 
by the slave trade, which is reduced now to a single 
island, restrained even there within close limits, and 
menaced constantly by that complete extinction 
which it cannot long escape. 

Fifty years will swell the number of the white 
race in the United States to one hundred millions. 
Another fifty years, if the rate of increase is not 
checked, (and it will not be so long as territorial ex- 
pansion is possible,) will swell the number to four 
hundred millions. Where else, except in Mexico, 
Central America, and the vast continent of South 
America, are these myriads of our posterity to find 
the outlets which will give them space and verge 
enough? But if those immense regions, of which 
so little has been explored, and of which even less 
is occupied, are to remain unpopulated until the 
negro race of the United States is sufficiently multi- 
plied for that purpose, they will remain unpossessed, 
not for one century, but for many centuries. 

No delusion has so little foundation as that as- 
sumed law of climate which would confine the white 
races to the latitudes of the free States of this Union. 
But when it is insisted upon in reference to our 
own country, where the facts which overthrow it 
are familiar to everybody, it is not wonderful that 
it is kept up in reference to countries of which we 
know less. When it is denied that the Southern 
States can be occupied by anybody but negroes, 
two-thirds of their inhabitants being actually whites, 



160 

and the increase of the whites being greater than 
that of the blacks, what absurdities may not be 
maintained ? 

If we look to the origins of the European races 
which inhabit this country, Georgia and Alabama 
and Tennessee are more like their mother countries 
than New England is. The Irishman and English- 
man and German find in Missouri and Texas, a 
climate less dissimilar to that at home, than they do 
in Wisconsin and Minnesota. The heats of summer 
arc longer and steadier at the South, but not more 
excessive than at the North. Labor in the fields is 
performed by whites, and without any ill conse- 
quences, in the extreme South. Nearly all the 
heavy, out-door work in the city of New Orleans is 
performed by whites. Humboldt observes that the 
Caucasian races are distinguished by their flexibility 
of organization in respect to climate ; and of this we 
have a remarkable instance in the French, who have 
long occupied the lower Mississippi and the most 
northerly of the Canadas, and without any loss of 
their original vigor in either of those widely sepa- 
rated latitudes. The descendants of that race, ex- 
pelled from Acadia, suffered a dispersion equally 
wide, being found in the Carolinas, on the Gulf of 
Mexico, and on the upper St. John in the latitude 
of Quebec. If there are malarious regions at the 
South, on the coasts of the Atlantic and the Gulf of 
Mexico, they are of limited extent; and as a whole, 
the white race exhibits as much physical vigor at 
the South as at the North, and, in the opinion of 
many observers, decidedly more. The mountain 
regions of the South, which are extensive, are cele- 



161 

bratecl for the size, hardiness, and muscular power 
of the white men who occupy them. 

The philosophers who, apparently unwilling that 
white men should descend below the limit of per- 
petual frost, show that no race except the African 
does now exist in the Southern States, although the 
census tables prove quite the contrary, have no diffi- 
culty in demonstrating that Mexico and Central 
America can only be occupied by negroes. In logic, 
as in morals, it is only the first mis-step which is 
difficult, all conclusions being possible and legiti- 
mate for those who select their premises at pleasure. 

The practical experience of mankind is a sufficient 
answer to fanciful rules, which, applied on the other 
side of the Atlantic, would surrender to the African, 
Spain, France, and Italy, and drive back their pres- 
ent inhabitants to the shores of the Baltic. The 
three thousand years of recorded civilization in the 
regions which environ the Mediterranean on all its 
sides, prove that no part of the continental borders 
of the Gulf of Mexico, and none of the islands which 
separate it from the ocean, need be abandoned to 
the barbarism of negro slavery. The European 
stock is found everywhere, from Texas to Patagonia, 
and in every part of that whole extent is more vigor- 
ous and prolific than any other race, indigenous or 
imported. Isothermal lines are not uniform with 
parallels of latitude; vertical suns are qualified by 
ocean breezes and mountain heights ; and America, 
even at the equator, offers to man salubrious abodes. 

The experiment of Africanizing America has had 
a long trial, of more than three centuries, and has 
failed at all points and in every particular. Of 



162 

course, it was not expected to bring civilization and 
the arts to the New World, and it has failed even 
to populate it. The policy of Africanization ought 
now to be given up ; but whether given up or not, 
it must soon yield to a new and better order of 
events. 

To obtain a more correct appreciation of the prob- 
able course of the competing races and .social organ- 
izations of the United States, let us sketch, by way 
of contrast, a course of things vainly believed to be 
possible by those identified with the interests and 
passions of slavery, and which they are still strug- 
gling to bring about. 

The first and essential step in their scheme of 
ambitious aggrandizement is to extend their favor- 
ite institution in one continuous line across the con- 
tinent to the Pacific Ocean, as far to the north as 
possible, but, at all events, somewhere, with the ex- 
pectation that it would prove an impassable barrier 
to the progress of free labor to the southward. This 
point being secured, the process of absorption is to 
be applied to all the regions which intervene between 
the United States and Brazil, so that the finest por- 
tions of America may become one unbroken and 
homogeneous slave empire. Oceanward, these men 
contemplate no less adventurous enterprises, than to 
prop up the tottering fabric of slavery in Cuba, to 
re-conquer the rebellious blacks of Hayti, and, in due 
time, to restore the ancient order of things in the 
British and French West Indies. These are great 
projects, but not too great for the ambition and en- 
thusiasm and restless energy of the men who have 
conceived them. Their achievement might be pos- 



163 

sible, if strategy could overcome numbers in a ques- 
tion of races, as it not unfrequently does in war. 
But fifty years will only carry up the number of 
slaves in the United States to twelve millions, even 
if their rate of increase be kept up to what it was 
between 1830 and 1850, which is altogether improb- 
able. By what tactics of disposition and movement, 
are twelve millions of negroes to dispute the field 
with one hundred millions of white men ? 

It is probable that the immigrants from Europe 
during the current decade, and their descendants, 
who will be living in the United States in 1860, will 
alone equal the whole number of slaves at that time. 

It was the darling object of the slaveholders to 
apply the Missouri Compromise line to the Terri- 
tories acquired from Mexico in 1848. They would 
doubtless have succeeded in it, if the result had 
been within the control of the Federal Government, 
and if sufficient time had been given for the opera- 
tions which have failed in no instance since 1820 to 
subdue Congress to their purposes. It happened, 
however, that the whole matter was brought to an 
abrupt termination by the movement of the people 
of California themselves, who proclaimed it a free 
State, and covered the whole territory on the Pacific 
acquired from Mexico. This cut the knot, and 
ended the vocation of compromising politicians. 

To evade the consequences of the signal discom- 
fiture then suffered, has been, and still is, an object 
of intense solicitude. It is this which has instigated 
buccaneering raids upon Lower California and upon 
Sonora; it is this which, at any moment judged 
opportune, will transfer any number of millions of 



164 

dollars, which may be necessary for the purpose, 
from the treasury of the United States to the 
treasury of Mexico, for the purchase of these prov- 
inces, already predoomed to slavery by a decision of 
the Supreme Court; it was this which induced the 
Administration of President Pierce to squander ten 
millions of dollars to consummate the acquisition 
which has devoted the name of Gadsden to lasting 
ridicule. And the same purpose, to which no sacri- 
fice seemed too great to secure a railroad route, along 
which the peculiar institutions of Texas might be 
carried to the Pacific, is still manifested in the 
establishment of roads and mails and passenger 
transportation on or near the same line. It has 
become a race, whether the negro from Texas and 
Arkansas, or the white laborer from Kansas and the 
free West, shall first reach New Mexico and the Gulf 
of California; and until the policy of the Govern- 
ment is changed, it is only for the negro that ways 
will be opened and roads built. 

Next in order of time to the triumph of freedom 
in California, and, if possible, of even more trans- 
cendent importance, is its triumph in Kansas, now 
believed to be secure. That Kansas is the key to 
the West, is apparent from an inspection of the map ; 
but every increase of our knowledge of the countries 
beyond it, adds to the estimate of its value. Routes, 
traversable in summer as well as in winter, to the 
Pacific, must be deflected southward from Kansas. 
Such practicable routes are known to exist, and 
will be opened and used, although the Government 
of the United States may give all its patronage to 
routes starting in slave regions; and Kansas will 



165 

thus be the point from which trade, travel, and 
settlements, will extend to New Mexico. Situated 
in the heart of the continent, Kansas only needs 
population to exert a wide and decisive control, 
eastward upon Missouri, southward upon the Indian 
Territory, and southwestward upon Northern Texas, 
New Mexico, and Sonora. 

It is, in short, yet to be determined whether 
slavery will be able to possess itself of any part of 
the northern and substantially unoccupied portions 
of Mexico, which we have already acquired, or may 
acquire hereafter; and it was always questionable 
whether it could successfully invade those portions 
which contain any considerable population. 

The generally-received opinion is, that negro 
slavery can only be safe where the free races are 
purely white, and that it cannot be established in 
the midst of mongrel and colored races. This was 
Mr. Calhoun's opinion, often expressed, in reference 
to acquisitions from Mexico. Even the small Mex- 
ican population which is left in Texas, is spoken 
of there as dangerous to the institution, and has 
l^een repeatedly threatened with expulsion on that 
account. The reader may examine in this connec- 
tion the opinions quoted from the debates on the 
annexation of Texas, which may be found in the 
appendices to this volume. An additional obstacle 
to the progress of negro slavery into the populated 
portions of Mexico, is the fact that there already 
exists there a class of laborers, whose cheapness and 
efficiency make them formidable competitors of the 
African. 

In reference to the adaptation to slave labor of 



166 

the unoccupied portion of Mexico, Mr. Olmsted, in 
his valuable volumes upon Texas, recently published, 
gives a negative opinion as to the region upon the 
Rio Grande, the per centage of tillable soil being 
stated to be small, and only to be found in diminu- 
tive patches. General Gadsden, late Minister to 
Mexico, informs the public that the region-upon the 
lower Colorado and the Gulf of California is adapted 
to rice, cotton, and sugar, and may be made to bear 
the same relation to our Pacific possessions to the 
north of it, as is borne by South Carolina and 
Georgia to the Northern Atlantic States. It was to 
reach this region that General Gadsden agreed to 
pay twenty millions of dollars, reduced by the 
United States Senate afterwards to half that sum. 

Both these opinions have respect to agricultural 
capacity, and not to the value of labor applied to 
mining. The question of slavery is frequently said 
to be a question of soil and climate. It is, in truth, 
a question of the value and supply of labor, and is 
only a question of soil and climate, in so far as those 
elements control, as they ordinarily do, the utility 
of labor and the effective demand for it. But 
slavery has always been applied to mining, and was, 
in fact, first introduced into America with that view. 
It was not the soil, but the mines of California, 
which, in the opinion of a Virginia Governor, would 
have carried up the price of an able-bodied negro to 
five thousand dollars. Is it certain that the mines 
of New Mexico and of the northern provinces of 
Mexico, not yet acquired, do not offer a field for 
labor more productive even than cotton and sugar 
plantations ? 



167 

The oracular dogma of Mr. Webster, that the 
laws of God prohibit slavery in New Mexico, is well 
remembered. Miss Martineau correctly observed 
of Mr. Webster, that, with all his great qualities, he 
was a trickster in oratory, and elaborate in all the 
theatrical resources of language. While he did not 
neglect substance, he was studiously attentive to 
forms. This particular dogma owes all its currency 
to the swelling and mysterious phraseology in which 
it is clothed. Nobody understood better than Mr. 
Webster, the art of imposing upon mankind. If he 
had said simply that slaves could not be profitably 
employed in New Mexico, those who heard him 
would have perceived that that was something 
within the ordinary range of human intelligence, 
and they might have agreed with him in opinion, or 
otherwise. But he did not miscalculate, that when 
he proclaimed that the laws of God prohibited sla- 
very in New Mexico, many of his hearers would 
permit it to pass unquestioned, under the belief that 
he understood that matter better than they did. 

Latitude has nothing to do with the forms of soci- 
ety, or with the passions of men. Lust, cruelty, the 
oppression of the weak by the strong; these are 
found everywhere. Slavery exists at the equator, 
and amid the snows of Russia. It is peculiar to no 
climate and to no pursuit. Slavery in New Mexico 
is prohibited by no law of man, and by no law of 
God, except that law of justice, which forbids it 
everywhere. It is invited there by the profits of 
mining, and will inevitably go there, unless free 
labor pre-occupies the ground. 

Undoubtedly, it is upon the determination of the 



168 

social institutions, which shall control the great 
region stretching from Kansas southwestwardly to 
the Gulf of California, that the fate of slavery in the 
United States largely depends. If free labor gets 
possession of that region, slavery will be confined to 
the skirts of the Gulf of Mexico, towards which it 
will be pressed constantly and irresistibly. Slavery 
will never be extinguished by pecking at one border, 
while an indefinite enlargement is still possible for 
it at another. Until it is surrounded completely 
and impassably, the period of its extinction cannot 
be computed. 

It is in this view of the subject, that, so far as free 
emigration may be influenced by political objects, it 
seems to be unwise to direct it upon Virginia. It 
is not there that the stress of the battle is. It is not 
within, but without, the limits of Virginia, that the 
general question of slavery, and even the question 
of slavery in Virginia itself, is to be settled. If we 
would destroy this Samson, we must know wherein 
his strength lies. Before we deal blows, let us see 
that they are aimed at vital parts. And can there 
be one single remaining doubt, that it is territorial 
expansion which is the life and soul of slavery as it 
exists in the United States, that this is the hair 
which makes the strong man invincible, that this is 
the enemy's Malakoff against which we are to 
thunder with unwearied pertinacity, summer and 
winter, day and night, never doubting that his com- 
plete overthrow will follow its capture ? 

The causes which will soon operate to carry emi- 
gration from the free Atlantic States into Virginia, 
have been heretofore considered. The motives 



169 

which will address themselves to the interests of 
emigrants to move in that direction, will prove 
strong and decisive in due time. They need not be 
enforced by artificial stimulation, either now, or 
hereafter. 

If we could command legislation and command 
events, (in truth, we can command neither,) it would 
not be good policy to push the slaves of Virginia 
into Arkansas and Texas, which would be to push 
them from a point where an extension of slavery is 
impossible, to points where it may be imminent. 
If the enemy disposes his forces, so as to expose us 
to the greatest possible dangers, that is to be ex- 
pected, and to be met by such opposing strategy as 
we may be able to devise ; but it is not wise to in- 
vite him, or drive him, into positions in which he 
will be most effective and most menacing. 

The tendency of slave labor to the southwest 
cannot be prevented, but it ought not to be stimu- 
lated, and it may be met by a free emigration to the 
same quarter. Kansas, already safe, may be made 
formidable by a great population. Missouri may 
unquestionably be rescued from slavery by an 
active white immigration, and so may be large por- 
tions of Arkansas. The proportion of slaves in Ar- 
kansas is not large, and its total population is insig- 
nificant, in contrast with its area and resources. 
With an area of 52,198 square miles, Arkansas 
had, in 1850, with a total population of 209,897, 
47,100 slaves; in 1854, by a State census, taking 
the numbers of 1850 for two counties not returned 
in 1854, the total population had increased to 
251,458, and the slaves to 59,492. Arkansas upon 
a 



170 

the Mississippi is low, and reputed to be unhealthy, 
but, as we proceed west, becomes higher and more 
salubrious. Northwestern Arkansas, like South- 
western Missouri, is not adapted to slave labor. Xo 
parts of it, in fact, are specially so, except upon the 
Mississippi and Red rivers. There are few slaves in 
that portion of Missouri which adjoins Arkansas. 
The slaves are principally in the southeastern por- 
tion of the State. In 1850, the northern half of the 
State, with more than one-half of the white popula- 
tion, had only one-fifth of the slave population. The 
wealth of Arkansas in minerals is incalculable, and, 
as soon as the State is opened by railroads, it ought 
to be taken possession of by a white population. 
This would make assurance doubly sure, that the 
Indian Territory behind it, which is one of the most 
desirable and attractive regions on the continent, 
shall not be overrun by slavery. 

It deserves consideration, that the same fact which 
intensifies the desire of slaveholders to extend the 
range of their peculiar property, impairs their power 
of extending it. The same high and advancing 
price of the negro, which gives vivacity to the rhet- 
oric by which the system of slavery is upheld, indis- 
poses his owner to run the hazard of losing him. 
Able-bodied negroes at fifteen hundred dollars 
apiece, are expensive troops to be exposed to the 
chances of battle. That sort of ware has become 
too precious to be trusted to the rough and tumble 
of a contested political field. Slave-owners are ex- 
ceedingly prudent in acts, however it may be in 
words. In the campaign in Kansas, they did every- 
thing except to carry their slaves there. Xo elo- 



171 

quence could persuade them to do that. They sent 
up their poor whites to that war, but wisely kept 
their blacks at home. The whites they sent there 
cost but little. The household troops, Caesar and 
Sambo, remained upon the old plantations. And 
what happened in Kansas, happened also in Nica- 
ragua. No single negro was carried from the United 
States to cultivate the sugar estates which were to 
be had there for the asking, under the late adminis- 
tration of General Walker. It seemed to be agreed, 
indeed, that if that sort of labor was obtained for 
Nicaragua, it must be by the old-fashioned trade, 
and at coast-of- Africa prices. The planters of the 
United States could not be enticed from the comfort- 
able certainty which they were enjoying, by dazzling 
but precarious profits, held up to them in Central 
America. Is it at all likely that they will follow 
other adventurers to tha^ field, or similar fields, 
while negroes possess their present marketable 
value ? 

It is not improbable that the high price of slaves, 
which is so potent a dissuasive of their exposure to 
risks, may be maintained, or even enhanced, until 
the fate of all debatable territories is settled. The 
capacity and aptitude of slave labor to appropriate 
new territory, are greater than those of free labor, 
numbers being equal; but it must be recollected, 
that not only are there within the present external 
limits of the slave States, vast regions wholly unoc- 
cupied, but that the population of regions heretofore 
considered to be occupied, admits of a large increase, 
by improved modes of transportation. The railroad 
system enlarges the effective area of the countries 



172 

to which it is applied, by rendering possible the cul- 
tivation of lands, impossible without it by reason of 
the expense of conveying crops to markets. If the 
number of slaves is duplicated, within thirty or 
thirty-five years, the entire increase will be absorbed 
by the agricultural capacities of the slave States 
which are not yet touched, without any enlarge- 
ment of their exterior limits, and without taking 
into account the applications which may be made 
of slave labor to other pursuits. It. is not in our 
day and generation that the slaveholders will be 
crowded for room, even if they be kept within the 
851,508 square miles which they now control, but 
of which they occupy only a portion. Their politi- 
cal ascendency has enlarged their external bound- 
aries, beyond the physical capacity of their slaves 
to fill them up. Instead of being driven to new 
enlargements by the pressure of an accumulating 
black population; the truth really is, that new en- 
largements, at present, will avail them nothing, from 
the deficiency of their black population. They will 
see that this is so, if, instead of listening to politi- 
cians, they will look at the facts immediately around 
them and under their own observation. 

The extension of negro slavery over Mexico and 
Central America, which fires the imaginations and 
rounds the periods of Southern orators, will be 
found, when subjected to the logic of figures, to be 
impossible, on the basis of the actual negro popula- 
tion of the United States. It can only be made pos- 
sible by the revival of the African slave trade, and 
that the civilized world will never permit. 

The tendency of the slave population to pass the 



173 

Mississippi is not strong, and does not seem to be 
much greater than it was five-and-twenty years ago. 
If we look to Missouri, slaves have only augmented 
since 1850 to the extent of their natural increase. 
If we look to Arkansas, the gain between 1850 and 
1854 was only 12,392; and of this number, one-third 
is due to natural increase. It is only in Texas that 
we see evidence of any important movement of the 
slave population across the Mississippi, and even 
there it is greatly overrated. Taking the State re- 
turns, the number of slaves in Texas increased in 
eight years, from 184T to 1855, only 66,914; that is 
to say, from 39,060 to 105,974. With a proper 
allowance for the gain by natural increase, the aver- 
age annual slave immigration, during those eight 
years, did not exceed 6,551. Texas may easily fur- 
nish room for a million of slaves, and at this rate, 
a long period must elapse before it is filled up ; and, 
in the mean time, where is the slave population 
which is to overrun Sonora, Lower California, and 
finally, the whole of Mexico ? Certainly, until Texas 
is tolerably filled, there can be no natural pressure 
of the slave population upon the regions beyond; 
and in the contest of races and systems which is 
now progressing, time is everything. A pause of a 
few years only in the territorial advance of slavery, 
leaves the field unobstructed to the flood of free 
white emigration which is pouring down upon the 
Southwest. 

The present tendency of the slave population of 
the Southern States is rather to consolidation, than 
to an enlargement of exterior limits. It is likely to 
continue so for many years, under the influence of 



174 

the railroad system, in which those States are em- 
harking with an energy so commendable. This 
change of tendency will promote the real interests 
of the Sonth, present and remote; but, at all events, 
it is unmistakable as a matter of fact. 

The observation of this fact will have its influence 
upon the new States hereafter to be formed. The 
paramount object of new States is to invite immi- 
gration, and they will readily see that this will be 
best accomplished by free institutions. If they 
make slave labor lawful, there is very little of it to 
be spared from the old States, while the establish- 
ment of slavery will keep out free laborers. If 
mankind were governed in politics, as uniformly as 
they are in the conduct of their private affairs, by 
their interests, this consideration would be decisive. 
But it will weigh much, with every allowance for 
the frenzy of political passions. 

The people of Texas committed a deplorable mis- 
take, when they established slavery as their funda- 
mental and unchangeable law, in 1836. Their hopes 
of a great and sudden immigration from the South 
have been completely disappointed; and they are 
now buying negroes at enormous prices, and in the 
nice of the certainty, that every negro they buy, 
keeps out ten intelligent white laborers, who would 
•come without cost, if slavery did not exist. It may 
be hoped that, with the experience of Texas before 
them, other new States will not repeat the same 
folly. 



175 



CHAPTER XII. 

Slavery will be maintained, so long as it is profitable. The state- 
ment, that abolition commenced in 1835, and has retarded eman- 
cipation, shown to be untrue. Change in Southern views attrib- 
utable to increased profits of slavery. Opinions of Governor 
Hammond. The discussion of slavery necessary, until the fate of 
the Territories is decided. 

Of the immediate abolition of slavery in the 
United States as a whole, it is sufficient to observe 
that those who alone have the power to accomplish 
it, can by no possibility be persuaded to exert that 
power. However proper, therefore, it may be to 
present the considerations which are supposed to 
indicate that its abolition is a moral duty, there is 
nothing practical in any discussion of the conse- 
quences which would flow from its abolition. That 
it will not take place in our day and generation, is 
as indubitable as anything future can be. 

It is said, that if the abolitionists had been more 
temperate and conciliatory in their language, they 
might long since have persuaded the slaveholders 
to give up slavery, at any rate in the northern slave 
States. It is even said that in some of those States 
public opinion had nearly ripened in favor of eman- 
cipation, when the zeal of the abolitionists was 
fatally aroused, and all hope of it destroyed or 
indefinitely postponed. And, as a necessary infer- 
ence from these statements as to what is past, it is 
said that emancipation can only be looked for here- 
after, and may then be looked for, when the people 
of the free States shall cease to make it the subject 
of agitation. 



176 

It is necessary, to the intelligibility of these state- 
ments, that some precise time be fixed when the acts 
and language of the abolitionists became sufficiently 
intemperate and threatening to produce the deplo- 
rable results now imputed to them. 

The year 1835 is the designated epoch of this 
outbreak of abolitionism, which dashed so many 
hopes of humanity, and extinguished so many 
virtuous resolutions. This was the fatal year when 
the purpose of emancipating their slaves, which had 
existed for fifty years in the breasts of the people of 
Virginia and Kentucky, waiting for the favorable 
moment to be put into execution, was disastrously 
and perhaps finally frustrated. 

One would imagine, from what is said upon this 
subject, that, prior to this year 1835, such a thing as 
an abolitionist had never existed in America ; that 
no man had ever denounced the wickedness or 
exposed the folly of slavery; that it was a subject 
forbidden to the political forum, to the pulpit, and 
to the press ; that no society had ever been formed 
to put it down; and that, in short, abolitionism 
dates with Arthur Tappan and William Lloyd 
Garrison. There is not an intelligent man born in 
America, who has reached or past middle life, who 
does not personally know that there is not one 
particle of truth in any of these statements, or the 
least color, or pretence of color, for them. 

Abolitionism, which existed before the Revolution, 
was so developed and vivified by the discussions and 
doctrines which led to and sustained that struggle, 
that it may be said to have been one of the fashions 
of the Revolutionary epoch; and it remained a 



177 

living, warming, and glowing principle, so long as 
the men of that day survived upon earth. Its record 
remains, luminous and imperishable, in the statutes 
and Constitutions of the Northern States of the 
Union. It exists in every written memorial of the 
opinions of the free States, without interruption, 
during the half century which followed the Revolu- 
tion. Sermons, newspapers, orations, school books, 
every form of literature, in short, in which popular 
impulses are most wont to speak out, are full of it. 
"Was it not in 1819 and 1820, that the whole North 
glowed with fervent heat in resistance to the admis- 
sion of Missouri into the Union; that slavery was 
discussed and denounced in all its moral and 
economical relations; and that its reprobation by 
the free States was unanimous and immovable, 
although baffled and rendered powerless by cow- 
ardly and treacherous representatives ? 

How has it happened, then, that denunciation of 
slavery, and effort for its overthrow, which had been 
incessantly manifested at the North, and not unfre- 
quently at the South also, should now be said to 
have commenced in 1835, and never to have been 
heard of before? By what strange hallucination 
and falsification is it, that men forget or deny facts 
which are an essential part of the history of the 
country, and are yet fresh in the recollection of 
innumerable witnesses? 

The year 1835 was the epoch, not of any new or 
increased agitation against slavery, but of an agita- 
tion of an altogether different sort; of a political 
agitation, of which abolitionism was not the cause, 
but the pretext; and the object of which was to com- 



178 

bine the Southern States into one solid mass, for the 
present purpose of controlling the Government of 
the country, and (with many) for the ulterior pur- 
pose of dissolving the Union. It was in 1835, not 
that abolitionism first manifested itself, but that 
Southern agitation, before that time directed against 
the protective tariff system, was shifted upon slavery, 
for political and personal purposes. 

Colonel Benton, in his Thirty Years in the Senate, 
speaking as a witness, and fortifying his statements 
by documentary proofs, shows the commencement, 
motives, and progress, of this new movement. Con- 
trasting the comparative decay of the Southern 
States, great in fact, and made greater by exaggerated 
recollections of Southern prosperity in early times; 
observing that the Southern belief, which imputed 
this decay to the tariff, had led to sectional Southern 
Commercial Conventions, to estrangement from the 
Union, and even to attempted nullification; he 
says : 

"A real change had come, and this change, the 

< effect of many causes, was wholly attributed to 
i one — the unequal working of the Federal Govern- 

< ment — which gave all the benefits of the Union to 

< the North, and all its burdens to the South. And 
' that was the point on which Southern discontent 
' broke out — on which it openly rested in 1835, 
1 when it was shifted to the danger to slave prop- 

< erty. 

The tariff question having been settled by the 
compromise of 1833, it was necessary to direct 
" Southern discontent" to some new quarter, and it 
was accordingly "shifted to the danger to slave prop- 
erty" in a report made in 1835 in the United States 



179 

Senate, by Mr. Calhoun, of which Colonel Benton 
says: 

"The insidiousness of this report was in the 

* assumption of an actual impending danger of the 
' abolition of slavery, * * * when the fact was, 
i that there was not one particle of any such danger. 
4 * * * Mr. Calhoun characterized his movement 
' as defensive — as done in the spirit of self-defence ; 
; it was then characterized by Senators as aggressive 
' and offensive. * * * Thus, within two short years 
4 after the * compromise' of 1833 had taken Mr. 
' Calhoun out of the hands of the law, he publicly 
i and avowedly relapsed into the same condition, 
4 recurring again to secession for a new grievance. * 

* * * It now becomes proper to tell that Mr. Clay, 
' after seeing the relapse of Mr. Calhoun, became 
' doubtful of the correctness of his own policy in 
6 that affair, (the compromise of 1833.") 

The assertion that the spirit of abolition, either 
originated in 1835, or received any special impetus 
in 1835, is untrue, and contradicted by all authentic 
history. It would not be difficult, indeed, to show 
that it had, on the contrary, been retrograding since 
the Revolution, both at the North and at the South. 
No new discoveries have been made in modern 
times, of the evil consequences of slavery, as a ques- 
tion of economy and expediency ; and so far as it is 
a violation of the natural rights of man, it was more 
offensive to our ancestors than it is to ourselves. If 
the spirit of liberty still survives, it is less warm, less 
generous, and less pervading, than it was during the 
Revolutionary age. 

As early as 1788, Luther Martin, of Maryland, 
said : 

"Slavery is inconsistent with the genius of re- 
' publicanism, and has a tendency to destroy those 



180 



' principles on which it is supported, as it lessens the 
* sense of the equal rights of mankind, and habitu- 
' ates us to tyranny and oppression. 

"At this time we do not generally hold this com- 
1 merce [the slave trade] in so great abhorrence as 
' we have done. When our liberties were at stake, 
' we warmly felt for the common rights of men. 
' The danger being thought to be past which threat* 
' ened ourselves, we are daily growing more insen- 
' sible to those rights." 

What the character of a people is supposed to be 
by those who address them, is always shown by the 
arguments used and the motives appealed to. The 
contrast, in these respects, between those who resist 
slavery to-day, and those who resisted it seventy 
years ago, is wonderful. It was then thought suffi- 
cient to point out, that slavery violated the inalien- 
able rights of human nature, and the Christian rule 
of doing to others as we would have others do to us. 
In any average miscellaneous American audience 
of the present day, sentiments like these would be 
received with ridicule, or indifference. It is now 
necessary, in order to arouse opposition to slavery, to 
show, not that it violates the rights of others, but 
that it destroys our own interests, that it ruins the 
white race, and that it saps the general wealth. It 
is, in short, not to the consciences, but to the self- 
ishness of men, that appeals are directed in these 
later times. 

If it be said, that before what is called the out- 
break of abolitionism in 1835, plans of emancipation 
were being matured at the South, and were on the 
point of execution, what evidence is offered of the 
fact? Is it pretended that any movement of eman- 
cipation had been made in any slave State for half 



181 

a century, or was then in progress in any of them ? 
Is anything pretended, in short, beyond this, that in 
the Legislature of Virginia, at its session of 1831-32, 
there was a discussion of the propriety of emancipa- 
tion ; a discussion which was brought on by a then 
recent and alarming slave insurrection; a discussion 
which ended in the nearly unanimous adoption of a 
declaratory resolution against emancipation; a dis- 
cussion which terminated as suddenly as it began, 
and which had been definitively abandoned before 
the year 1835 ? Did anything come of the discussion, 
or was anything proved by it, except the unshaken 
and immovable purpose of the controlling majority 
of the people of Virginia to hold fast to slavery? 
And if there was discussion in 1832, was there any- 
thing new and hopeful in that? Had there not been 
for half a century a minority in Virginia which had 
discussed slavery, denounced it, and sought to abol- 
ish it? Had not Washington, Jefferson, Madison, 
Henry, and Mason, talked and written against sla- 
very ? But what evidence is there, or what reason 
is there to believe, that this minority, which has 
always existed in Virginia, and exists there now, 
although silenced by a reign of terror, has ever 
made substantial progress, or has ever approached 
the achievement of its wishes ? 

'Not only is the averment, that, prior to 1835, any 
Southern States were preparing to abolish slavery, 
without evidence to support it, but it is contradicted 
by the whole history of the country. In 1820, the 
South was as unanimous and as ardent, in the Mis- 
souri controversy, to extend slavery over the West, 
as it was in 1854, in the Kansas controversy. The 



182 

zeal of the sons in 1854 was no greater than that 
of the fathers in 1820. In 1824, one of the fiercest 
political contests which has ever agitated Illinois, 
was carried on to introduce and establish slavery 
there. The movement, to be sure, was not favored 
by all of its citizens who were Southern born, but 
all who did favor it were Southern born, and they 
were stimulated by the sympathy and active aid of 
the surrounding slave States. The conquest of Texas 
by slavery, and for the uses of slavery, was planned 
and substantially executed, before what is called the 
abolition agitation of 1835. 

It appears, in fact, in the history of this very 
discussion of 1832 in Virginia, now said to have 
sprung up in the absence of abolition agitation, that 
that agitation was in full vigor, and was then known 
and fiercely denounced in Virginia. 

In his message to the Legislature of that State, at 
its session commencing in December, 1831, after 
stating the particulars of the Southampton slave 
insurrection, Governor Floyd said : 

"Those plans of treason, insurrection, and murder, 
1 have been designed, planned, and matured, by 
' unrestrained fanatics in some of the neighboring 
* States, who find facilities in distributing their 
c views and plans amongst our population, either 
' through the post office, or by agents sent for that 
' purpose throughout our territory. * * * The senti- 
' ments, and sometimes the words, of these inflam- 
' matory pamphlets, which the meek and charitable 
' of other States have seen cause to distribute as 
' firebrands in the bosom of our society, have been 
' read." 

In the discussion which followed in the Legisla- 
ture, Mr. Knox (January 17) denounced "those 



183 

6 Yankee philanthropists ivho have had so much agency 
4 in fermenting strife upon this question''' 

On the succeeding day, Mr. Gholson went at large 
into the subject, and declared that civil war itself 
would be a less calamity than the Northern agita- 
tion then in progress, but which, according to the 
romancers of the present day, did not commence 
until three years afterwards. Mr. Gholson said : 

"Northern lights have appeared. Incendiary 
4 publications have scattered their illuminating rays 
4 among us, to conduct the slave to massacre and 

* bloodshed. But these are not lights of the age, or 
4 lights from heaven. It is the * glare of Avernus — 
4 a darkness visible,' in the light of which, demons 
4 and devils alone delight to dwell. I most ardently 
4 hope that these Northern lights will not be disre- 
4 garded or overlooked by the Southern Republics 
4 of this Union. Sir, they must be extinguished, 
4 or the most melancholy consequences will ensue. 
4 Already, do I fear, their machinations have suc- 
4 ceeded in impressing into the minds of our slaves 

* a spirit of restlessness and insubordination. These 
4 are the true authors of all our apprehensions and 
4 unhappiness ; and, in the voice of my constituents, 
4 I call upon my Government to interpose all the 
4 power at its command to shield and protect them 
4 from the evil. These fanatical miscreants are not 
6 only violating the statutory laws of Virginia ; they 
4 are violating the soundest and justest principles of 
4 international law itself, and weakening and break- 
4 ing asunder those kind and amicable relations 
4 which should ever subsist between sister States. * 
4 * * If there is no mode of peaceable redress 
4 secured to us, I declare, on the responsibility of 
4 the public station I now occupy, that, rather than 
4 submit to the continuance of evils like these, with- 
4 out the hope of redress, I would appeal to war, and 
4 deem it the lesser evil." 



184 

Although the discussion of 1831-32, in the Legis- 
lature of Virginia, is attributable to a then recent 
slave insurrection, and not to the anti-slavery 
movements which were then particularly active in 
Europe and in the Northern United States ; yet it is 
proof, and of the most decisive character, that the 
agitation of abolition has, at any rate, no tendency 
to retard emancipation, even if it has no tendency 
to promote it. The year 1832 was the epoch of 
emancipation in the British Colonies, and during 
the period which immediately preceded 1832, the 
public mind of Great Britain had been necessarily 
concentrated upon that subject, while there had 
been a corresponding activity of discussion on this 
side of the Atlantic. This fact, however, did not 
prevent discussion in Virginia. No man is ever 
restrained from pursuing a course in harmony with 
his own wishes and opinions, merely because he is 
advised to it by others; although it is common 
enough, to make the manner of disagreeable advice, 
the pretext for fhe purpose, already pre-determined, 
to disregard it. 

It contradicts the universal experience of mankind 
to suppose that the people of any of the Southern 
States have been kept back from measures, which 
they had really determined to be for their own 
interests, by mere irritation and resentment against 
the few persons at the North, whom they are accus- 
tomed to characterize as fanatics. It is insulting to 
the people of the South to suppose them to have 
been influenced in a matter of the first importance, 
affecting social stability, and controlling the value of 
property, by a motive so inadequate and so puerile. 



185 

Undoubtedly, a change has taken place within 
twenty years in Southern opinion in respect to 
slavery, but we can find quite other explanations for 
it than the asserted fact that abolition agitation 
commenced in 1835, which is a pure fiction, and 
which, even if true, had no sufficient tendency to 
produce the consequences imputed to it. 

Slavery is maintained by the same cause which 
originates it. It exists because it is profitable, and 
will continue to exist, until the motive of interest, 
which sustains it, is so far diminished as to be 
counterbalanced by other considerations. 'Now, the 
value of slaves has been steadily advancing during 
the last twenty years, having more than doubled 
within that period. Precisely in proportion as 
slavery has become more profitable, attachment to 
it has increased, and the number of those, where it 
exists, who seek to abolish it, has diminished. - This 
is an adequate explanation of whatever change in 
Southern opinion has occurred. 

Governor Hammond, of South Carolina, in his 
well-known letter, written a few years since, to 
Thomas Clarkson, places the whole subject upon 
the true ground, with a frankness characteristic of 
the man and of his State. Governor Hammond says : 

"They [the abolitionists] revile us as 'atrocious 
' monsters,' 'violators of the laws of nature, God, and 
'man,' our homes the abode of every iniquity, our 
1 land a 'brothel.' We retort, that they are 'incen- 
' diaries' and 'assassins.' Delightful argument! 
' sweet, potent ' moral suasion ! ' What slave has 
' it freed — what proselyte can it ever make? But, 
' if your course was wholly different — if you distilled 
' nectar from your lips, and discoursed sweetest 

8*. 



186 

' music, could you reasonably indulge the hope of 
' accomplishing your object by such means? Nay; 
' supposing that we were all convinced, and thought 
' of slavery precisely as you do, at what era of 
' ' moral suasion ' do you imagine you could prevail 
' on us to give up a thousand millions [two thousand 
' millions in 1857] of dollars in the value of our 
' slaves, and a thousand millions of dollars more in 
' the depreciation of our lands, in consequence of 
' the want of laborers to cultivate them ? Consider ; 
' were ever any people, civilized or savage, persuaded 
i by any argument, human or divine, to surrender, 

* voluntarily, two thousand millions of dollars? 

* Would you think of asking five millions of Eng- 
' lishmen to contribute, either at once or gradually, 
i four hundred and fifty millions of pounds sterling 
1 to the cause of philanthrophy? * * * You see 
' the absurdity of such an idea. Away, then, with 

* your pretended 'moral suasion.' You know it is 

* mere nonsense." 

It would be difficult to select more apt and vigor- 
ous words than those with which Governor Hammond 
disposes of the idle assumption that slavery is main- 
tained, in consequence of the (so called) violence of 
the abolitionists, or for any other reason than the 
simple and sufficient one that it is profitable, and 
profitable to such a degree, that, taking human 
nature as it is, slaveholders would not give it up, 
if they were all convinced that they ought to do so. 
If, in lieu of denunciation, the abolitionists had 
" distilled nectar from their lips, and discoursed siceetesi 
music " the slaveholders, in the opinion of Governor 
Hammond, would have still clung to slavery. The 
case, as he well observes, is not within the power 
of " moral suasion" He does not even hesitate to 
denounce, as an "absurdity" and "-nonsense" the 



187 

idea that the vast pecuniary interests involved in 
slavery could be made to succumb to any moral 
appeal, however vigorous, or however graceful. 
The view taken by Governor Hammond is clearly 
correct, and he is entitled to respect for the energetic 
frankness with which he has expressed it. 

It should not be understood that Governor 
Hammond admits that slaveholding is fairly subject 
to moral criticism. He expressly maintains the 
contrary. 

It is not assuming that the people of the South 
are sinners above other men, to assume that they 
will not give up slavery so long as it is profitable to 
maintain it, and so long as it forms so considerable 
a part of their industrial system as it now does. 
Nor does such an assumption imply an acquiescence 
in the theory, at once degrading and demoralizing, 
that mankind can only be moved by appeals to 
their interest, and that conscience, benevolence, and 
generosity, express ideas which have no place in 
public affairs. 

Nothing is more certain than that the abolition 
of slavery in the Northern States of this Union, 
during the Revolutionary War and afterwards, was 
very much due to generous instincts, to a sense of 
moral and political right, and to the promptings of 
religious duty. Yet it must be recollected that the 
number of slaves so liberated was small, and their 
pecuniary value at that period exceedingly trifling. 
How might it be at the present day at the North, 
if slavery still existed there, with its increased 
advantages, growing out of the increased value of 
labor and the difficulties of supplying household 



188 

service? And if its abolition would be doubtful, it 
is certain that, if the laws did not prohibit it, our 
Northern cities would abound in slaves, and the 
rivalries of luxury and display would be manifested 
in retinues of the most approved sleekness and of 
the purest jet. 

With masses of men and in public affairs, as with 
individuals in private affairs, the appeals of self- 
interest, when large and urgent, may be ordinarily 
expected to overbalance merely moral suggestions. 
And there is this difference between masses of men 
and single individuals, that that regard for character, 
which, with the latter, comes in aid of the moral 
sense, and is to a large extent a practical substitute 
for it, is lost in the irresponsibility of a crowd. If 
this view is unpalatable to ingenuous and inexperi- 
enced youth, or to that enthusiasm of any age which 
will anticipate no obstacle to what is right, and no 
defence of what is wrong ; it is not inconsistent with 
a confidence in the practical power, within certain 
limits, of unselfish and elevated impulses. Because 
we cannot expect everything from that class of 
motives, it by no means follows that we can expect 
nothing. ISTot only is the dogma that mankind are 
governed wholly by interest, repulsive and demoral- 
izing, but it is untrue. It is received only by those 
shallow intellects which cannot comprehend the 
complicated organization of the human mind, and 
which find a relief in the simplicity of a theory 
which represents it as moved only, as a balance is, 
by the preponderance of material and homogeneous 
weights. The practical sense of mankind in private 
life teaches them quite another rule: that benevo- 



189 

lence and justice have a substantial influence in 
human affairs, although liable to be overpowered 
by great interests; and that an entire inability to 
oppose temptation is not to be inferred, because a 
certain amount of temptation is irresistible. 

Nor should it be forgotten, in judging of the 
probable conduct of slaveholders, and of the conclu- 
sions to which they will be led as to the moral basis 
and political expediency of their peculiar domestic 
institution, that many things in it justly repulsive 
cease to be so, because familiar and accustomed; 
that, in this as in other matters, self-interest warps 
and clouds the judgment; and that the temper and 
habits formed by slaveholcling are peculiarly unfa- 
vorable to sound reasoning upon it; "it being, by 
sorroivful experience, remarkable," to quote the testi- 
mony of the Quakers of Pennsylvania, in 1754, 
against slavery, "that custom and familiarity with evil 
' of any kind have a tendency to bias the judgment and to 
1 deprave the mind." 

On a fair view of the subject, tbe people of the 
free States will be more blamable than the people 
of the slave States, if the vast extensions of the 
system of slavery, now meditated, botb at home and 
by acquisitions of foreign territory, shall be allowed 
to be consummated. Placed in a position to observe 
tbe institution without any bias derived from educa- 
tion, babit, or interest; comprehending perfectly 
how wasteful it is of physical resources, how cor- 
rupting of morals, and how debasing in its effects 
both upon blacks and whites ; the people of the free 
States will be inexcusable, if they do not oppose its 
wider spread, with that unanimity, steadiness, and 



190 

resolution, necessary to be combined in order to 
resist ejffectively so powerful and active a mischief. 

We have seen that the tenacity with which slavery 
is clung to, can, with no semblance of truth, be 
attributed to the attacks said to have been made 
upon it by the abolitionists; that this tenacity is 
founded, not upon irritation, but upon interest; 
that it will yield to no form of persuasion, even if 
its lips " distilled nectar, and discoursed sweetest music; " 
and that it will only succumb, when slavery, circum- 
scribed within fixed limits, shall cease to be profit- 
able with the progress of population. 

This, however, is viewing slavery in the United 
States as a whole. It exists in fact in distinct 
parts, and, while its general strength may be for the 
present unassailable, it may still yield in particular 
quarters. In several of the slave States, the interests 
of slavery bear so small a proportion to all others, 
that its speedy extinction would give no shock to 
industry, or greatly disturb the relations of property. 
To the public mind in these States, argument and 
persuasion may be hopefully addressed. 

But it is, after all, not so much with reference to 
the States in which slavery exists, as in reference to 
the vast Territories of the Union whose fate in that 
particular remains to be determined, that the per- 
sistent discussion of the character and consequences 
of slavery is the first political duty of the present 
times. The fortune of those Territories cannot be 
so vitally and lastingly affected by any other one 
decision, or indeed by all other conceivable decisions 
combined, as by this one of the establishment or 
prohibition of slavery. It controls wealth, popular 



191 

tion, the arts, education, and morals. The whole 
area of the Territories equals the whole area of the 
States ; and if the view be limited to so much of the 
Territories as is probably exposed to the calamity 
of slavery, it is still sufficient to demand the most 
urgent and vigilant measures of defence. If the 
institutions of the Territories are to be determined 
hereafter, not by Congress, but by the people who 
will inhabit them, that people should be well 
instructed in political duty, and instruction would 
be incomplete indeed, which did not include the 
most transcendent of all political topics. Our sons 
and daughters, who go forth to possess the land, 
should be guarded against the sophistries and 
temptations which will assail them, inflamed with 
a love of liberty, and armed with an intelligent 
appreciation of its inestimable value. The nature 
of the arbitrament to which the fate of the Territo- 
ries is remitted, invites, and even commands, the 
discussion of slavery. And what discussion, grander 
in theme, or controlling vaster or more lasting 
results, can incite genius, or arouse eloquence, than 
this, which shall determine whether the territorial 
march of the American people over a boundless 
continent, shall be that of bondage, idleness, and 
ruin, or of freedom, industry, and prosperity ? 



192 



CHAPTER XHI. 

Review of Debates in Virginia in 1832. Abolition not seriously 
proposed. The alarm which then existed, in reference to outlets 
for slaves, since removed. Eastern Virginia opposed to any action. 
Views of Hon. C. J. Faulkner and others as to slavery. Emanci- 
pation in Virginia will be long postponed, unless the domestic 
slave trade is prohibited. 

The debate in the Virginia House of Delegates in 
1832, upon the subject of slavery, deserves attention, 
not merely with a view to correct the misrepresent- 
ations of it which have been industriously circulated 
of late years, but because a correct knowledge of the 
feelings and opinions developed by it, will throw 
useful light upon the future. 

The first thing to be noticed about this debate is, 
tha\ it is to be ascribed exclusively to the South- 
ampton slave insurrection of the preceding summer, 
which resulted in the massacre of sixty-one white 
persons, and created the keenest excitement, not 
only in Virginia, but throughout the entire South. 
Among other evidences of the wide-spread conster- 
nation, is the fact that an extra session of the Legis- 
lature of Louisiana was convened by the Governor, 
for the express purpose of prohibiting the importa- 
tion of slaves, at which extra session the law of 
"November 19, 1831, was enacted, increasing the 
stringency of the previous law of January 31, 1829. 

From the Richmond Enquirer of January 12, 1832. 

"Our oldest readers will do us the justice to say 

* that we had forborne to touch the subject of colored 

* population for twenty-seven years. We felt that 
' none is more delicate, and none more beset with 
< difficulties. But at length the outbreaking in 



193 

4 Southampton spread horror throughout the Com- 
i mon wealth. We saw the flood-gates of discussion 

< for the first time raised, in consequence of this 

* unparalleled event. * * * The press broke the 

* silence of fifty years. * * * All these things were 
' indeed new in our history. And nothing else could 

* have prompted them but the bloody massacre in 
' the month of August." 

It can hardly be said that the attention of the 
people of Virginia was turned seriously to the 
subject of abolishing slavery. The plans discussed 
had reference to the removal of free negroes, and 
there were only two memorials presented which 
looked to abolition. A committee was raised, at 
the commencement of the legislative session, to 
consider the subject of the free negroes, the slaves, 
and the Southampton insurrection, but this com- 
mittee was opposed to abolition, and the law which 
they finally reported had relation only to free 
negroes. 

Giles's Register, which is generally referred to 
with a reliance that it omits the notice of no con- 
temporaneous event of importance, has the three 
following paragraphs, and they are all which relate 
to the subject. 

From Niles's Register, January 7, 1832. 

"The best judgment of the people of Virginia 

< and some of the other Southern States is earnestly 

< exerted to discover what may be done with the 
6 colored population. But the public attention, we 

< think, is unfortunately chiefly directed to the free 

< blacks." 

From the Register of January 28. 

"The slave question is yet in full debate before 
the Virginia House of Delegates. It seems prob- 

9 



194 

< able that 'something will be done.' The declining 
6 condition of the State is plainly seen, and the real 
' cause of it fully acknowledged by many." 

From the Register of February 25. 

"Virginia. — The bill relative to the removal of 
' the free colored population of that State was 
' passed, by a vote of seventy-nine to forty-one." 

It would be extraordinary indeed, if, in truth, a 
serious movement had been made to abolish slavery 
in the Legislature of Virginia, the principal slave- 
holding State in the Union, and especially if such 
a movement had received considerable support, that 
no notice of it should be found in the fullest and 
most accurate chronicle of passing events. 

In fact, no such movement was made. The initi- 
ative in the discussion came from the other side. 
It was not because anybody proposed abolition, that 
debate arose, but because those who desired that 
slavery should be indefinitely continued, demanded 
and insisted upon a legislative declaration that sla- 
very should not be abolished. It was the pro-slavery 
party, conscious of its overwhelming strength, which 
commenced the battle. 

The question was, not whether abolition should 
be carried, but whether a legislative declaration 
against abolition should be made ; and on this ques- 
tion there were many votes in the negative, given, 
to a small extent, perhaps, by persons in favor of 
abolition, but mainly by persons who were opposed 
to abolition, and so avowed themselves, but who 
were yet disinclined to any affirmative repudiation 
of abolition. 

A similar case occurred last winter in the Legisla- 



195 

ture of Missouri. Nobody had proposed abolition 
there, but a resolution against abolition was intro- 
duced and forced through, exciting debate, and 
drawing out anti-slavery speeches. 

On the 10th of January, Mr. Goode, a sturdy 
champion of slavery, arose in the Virginia House 
of Delegates, and stated, that some newspapers were 
presuming to hint at abolition, and that a legislative 
declaration was needed, to quiet the public mind. 
Having inquired when the committee on negroes 
would report, and being answered that a report 
might be expected on the 13th, but not with abso- 
lute certainty, he said that the judgment of the 
House should be forthwith pronounced, and that he 
should, on the next day, offer a resolution with that 
view. 

Accordingly, on the 11th, he proposed the follow- 
ing: 

" Resolved, That the select committee raised on the 
* subject of slaves, free negroes, and the melancholy 

< occurrences growing out of the tragical massacre 
6 in Southampton, be discharged from the consider- 
' ation of all petitions, memorials, and resolutions, 
' which have for their object the manumission of 
6 persons held in servitude under the existing laws 

< of this Commonwealth, and that it is not expedient 
6 to legislate on the subject." 

On the next day, January 12, Mr. Goode insisted 
that his resolution should be taken up and consid- 
ered, and carried his point, by a vote of one hundred 
and sixteen to seven. 

January 16, the select committee reported the 
following resolution, which superseded that proposed 
by Mr. Goode : 



196 

" Resolved, (as the opinion of this committee,) That 
' it is inexpedient for the present Legislature to 
6 make any legislative enactment for the abolition 
' of slavery." 

Only two motions to amend were pressed to a 
vote; one by Mr. Preston, of Montgomery, to sub- 
stitute the word "expedient" for the word "inexpe- 
dient;" the other by Mr. Bryce, to add a preamble 
to the report. 

The whole matter was disposed of on the 25th of 
January. 

It is evident, from the published debates, that Mr. 
Preston's motion to amend did not contemplate any 
positive action, and was not supported with that 
view, but was resorted to, as a parliamentary move- 
ment, by those who did not mean to be committed 
to a declaration against abolition. The following is 
found in the reports of January 25: 

"Mr. Rives said he merely wished to point out to 
i the gentleman from Montgomery (Mr. Preston) 
' the anomalous position in which the House was 
' placed by his motion to amend the report. Mr. 
' Rives did not believe there was a member in the 
' House who was in favor of legislating upon the 
f subject of abolition this year. Yet, if this motion 
' were to be voted upon as the measure of the 
' friends of abolition, this result would happen; it 
1 would be entered on the journal that the House 
< voted for acting this year — at the same time every 
6 member, when asked the question, said he was not 
' in favor of acting." 

Again Mr. Rives said : 

"There was not, he believed, a single member 
' who thought a plan could be presented, for which 
' they would be willing to vote. The gentleman 
' from Montgomery shakes his head, said Mr. Rives. 



197 

4 I believe lie is alone, if he is prepared to go for 
6 any plan of abolition at this time." 

Mr. Preston declined to withdraw his amendment. 
He said: 

"He wished the House to decide whether they 
4 would adopt some preliminary mode of action. If 
4 any scheme should be adopted, which did not meet 
4 his approbation, he should not consider himself 
4 pledged, by his vote for the amendment, to vote 
4 for it." 

"Mr. Wilson, of Botetourt, said, that, as voting 
1 for the amendment would imply no pledge to vote 
4 for any particular measure that would take from 
4 the citizen his property, he should vote for the 
4 amendment." 

Mr. Preston's amendment was lost by a vote of 
fifty-eight to seventy-three. 

Mr. Bryce's motion to amend the report by pre- 
fixing a preamble, was carried by a vote of sixty- 
seven to sixty, the preamble being as follows : 

"Profoundly sensible of the great evils arising 
6 from the condition of the colored population of 
4 this Commonwealth; induced by humanity as well 
4 as policy to an immediate effort for the removal, in 
4 the first place, as well of those who are now free, 
4 as of such as may hereafter become free ; believing 
4 that this effort, while it is in just accordance with 
4 the sentiments of the community on the subject, 
4 will absorb all our present means, and that the 
4 removal of slaves should await a more definite 
4 development of public opinion." 

The question recurring on the resolution of the 
committee, it was agreed to without a division. 

The report of the committee, as amended by the 
preamble of Mr. Bryce, was then adopted by a vote 
of sixty-four to fifty-nine. 



198 

And so the whole thing was ended. A well- 
turned preamble held out a hope that something 
might be done at a more convenient season, but for 
the present the House resolved, nemine eontradicente, 
to do nothing. 

Of those disposed to do something to diminish the 
evil of slavery, very few suggested its compulsory 
abolition at any period, however remote. The 
measure meeting the most favor, proceeded upon^ 
the idea that the right of property in slaves was too 
sacred to be taken away, even on payment of com- 
pensation, and only contemplated the purchase of 
such as might be offered for sale by their owners. 

On the 13th of January, Mr. Brodnax maintained: 

"That not a slave should be manumitted without 
' being deported from the State. Nothing should 

< be attempted which could affect injuriously the 

< value or security of property. The State should 
' take from no citizen a slave, without the consent 
6 of the owner. He should start by sending six 
' thousand free negroes annually to Liberia. The 
6 increase of the colored population might thus be 
' kept down, and the threatened evils prevented." 

It was this view which was taken by the Eichmond 
Enquirer, now often referred to as having favored 
the abolition movement in 1832. It is true that on 
the 7th of January the Enquirer declared that "some- 
thing must be done" in consequence of the increasing- 
numbers of the slaves; but the courage of the editor 
soon faded out, under the denunciations of the slave- 
holders. 

From the Enquirer of January 19. 

"The rules that we should pursue are: Touch not 
< private property. Violate no vested rights in the 
'slightest degree. Receive all that is voluntarily 



199 

4 given. Pay full compensation for all that is freely 
' sold and freely purchased. Deport all that are 
i given or bought. Eaise as soon as we can the 
'funds that are necessary for the purpose. Take 

* time for the consummation of any plan — a century, 

* if necessary." 

From the Enquirer of January 2G. 

""We expressed a very brief opinion upon the 
' lessening of an evil ' that has increased, is increas- 
' ing, and ought to be diminished.' The article 
' which we put forth was discreet and moderate. 
1 We thought so then, and we think so still. If 
4 any opinions have been since advanced by others, 
' which strike at the strong and inalienable right of 
' the white man in his slave, are we to blame for 
6 that error? If some gentlemen have fallen into 
' any wild scheme of emancipation, * * * shall we 

* be held up as the enemies of the whites ? * * * 
' Have we not uniformly held, that not the hair of 
' a slave's head must be touched, without the free, 

* voluntary, cheerful assent of his lawful proprietor? " 

The Enquirer, it seems, was willing to postpone 
the abolition of slavery to 1932, which is nine years 
later than the time when, according to the computa- 
tion of Judge Tucker of Virginia, it must neces- 
sarily cease, even in the Gulf States, by the pressure 
of population. 

The number of slaves, which was stationary in 
Virginia between 1830 and 1850, had increased 
steadily prior to 1830; and this increase was still 
looked for in the future, at the period of the debate 
in 1832. In fact, it was apprehended that it would 
go on more rapidly than before, in consequence of 
the refusal of the Southwestern States to receive 
slaves. The action of Louisiana was constantly 
referred to in the debate, and it was stated that a 



200 

similar action in Kentucky had only failed by a few 
votes. And upon this it may be remarked, that no 
such thing as abolition could have been meditated 
in Kentucky, if a proposition to forbid the intro- 
duction of more slaves was supported only by a 
minority. 

It was the apprehension of an increase of their 
slaves which excited uneasiness in Virginia in 1832. 
Subsequent events have removed this uneasiness. 
Southwestern markets have drawn off their surplus, 
and abolition is no longer suggested. Is it not easy 
to see that the removal of this cause of uneasiness, 
in connection with the increasing prices of slaves, is 
sufficient to explain the decadence in Virginia of the 
tendency to emancipation (feeble as it was) displayed 
in 1832; and that it is idle to impute it to anything 
since done, or omitted to be done, at the North ? 

From the Enquirer of January 7. 

" Something must be done, when every new census 
' is but gathering its appalling numbers [of slaves] 
' upon us; when within a period equal to that in 
' which this Federal Constitution has been in exist- 
' ence, those numbers will increase to more than 
' two millions within Virginia; when our sister 
1 States are closing their doors upon our blacks for 

< sale." 

In the House of Delegates, January 11, Mr. 
Randolph, of Albemarle, said: 

"If exportation ceases, the slave population, at 
4 its hitherto rate of increase, must, in 18G0, be 

< 1,028,000; .in 1900, 2,910,000." 

From the Charlottesville (Va.) Advocate, quoted in the Enquirer of 
January 19. 

"It is well known that nearly all the Western and 
' Southern States have either taken measures, or are 



201 

4 now taking them, to prevent the further importa- 
4 tion of this species of property into their territories. 
4 When this class of our population shall, hy the 
4 adoption of such measures on the part of our 
4 neighboring States, be left without any outlet 
4 whatever to the State of Virginia, who can say 
4 what their numbers may be, fifty years hence? " 

The threatened closing of the former outlets for 
slaves, seemed specially to alarm Virginia west of 
the Blue Ridge. The black current, as they argued, 
would begin to flow in upon themselves. These 
views were presented by several speakers, but with 
special vigor by Hon. C. J. Faulkner, now a member 
of Congress. On the 20th of January, he said: 

44 Heretofore, the western part of this State has 
4 been protected from this redundant slave popula- 
4 tion, by the innumerable outlets through which it 
4 escaped to every portion of the Union, but more 
4 particularly by the Southern demand. This was 
* our protection. But now, Maryland, on the north, 
4 has closed her territory against the further import- 
4 ation of our blacks; Kentucky has taken the 
4 alarm, and the Southern markets are closed 
4 against us. Will not the waters, thus dammed up, 
c flow back to the farthest western extremity of this 
4 Commonwealth? 

"Uniformity in political views, feelings, and in- 
4 terests, in all the parts of this widely-extended 
4 State, would, I admit, be extremely desirable. 
4 But that uniformity is purchased at too dear a 
4 rate, when the bold and intrepid forester of the 
4 West must yield to the slothful and degraded 
4 African ; and those hills and valleys which until 
4 now have re-echoed with the songs and industry 
4 of freemen, shall have become converted into deso- 
4 lation and barrenness by the withering footsteps 
4 of slavery. Sir, it is to arrest any such possible 
4 consequences to my country, that I, one of the 



202 

4 humblest, but not the least determined, _ of the 
4 "Western delegation, have raised my voice for 
4 emancipation. Sir, tax our lands — vilify our coun- 
< try — carry the sword of extermination through our 
4 now defenceless villages ; but spare us, I implore 
4 you, spare us the curse of slavery — that bitterest 
4 drop from the chalice of the destroying angel." 

It is proper and important to note, in this connec- 
tion, that if anything was said, or done, in the 
Legislature of Virginia, in 1832, pointing at all in 
the direction of emancipation, it came from West- 
ern, or non-slaveholding, Virginia. Eastern Virginia 
was for keeping things as they were. There is noth- 
ing in the case, in any aspect of it, which can be 
cited as proof that the slaveholders of Virginia 
evinced any disposition to give up slavery. 

On the 25th of January, in reference to the 
amendment moved to the resolution of the select 
committee, to substitute the word "expedient" for 
the word "inexpedient" Mr. Rives said: 

"He could not speak positively, but he did not 
4 think there was a member from a county east of 
4 the Ridge, who would vote for the amendment." 

Mr. Sims, January 25th, said : 

"Those most interested in this question, involv- 
4 ing, as had been erroneously said, so much danger, 
4 looked on supinely, and had no desire for legisla- 
4 tive action. Eastern Virginia had not spoken." 

Mr. Gholson, January 18th, said: 

"From our wide-extended territory, and hundreds 
4 of thousands of population, but two memorials have 
4 been addressed to this body on the subject of 
4 emancipation; one from the county of Loudon, 
4 and the other from a society of Quakers in Han- 
4 over. The community entertains no such senti- 



203 

* ments as those ascribed to it in this debate. There 
' is one question on which the public mind is defi- 
4 nitely settled; that is, the propriety of removing 
' the free colored population. The subject of abo- 
1 lition is one which has not engaged their serious 
' attention. * * * 

"What portion of this Commonwealth is it which 

* demands this measure at our hands? Not the 
4 East, sir; for they rise up, almost as one man, 
1 against it. * * * It is a question in which the 
' East is vitally, and, I may say, almost exclusively 
' interested." 

This debate in the Virginia Legislature, if it 
accomplished no other good, brought out some 
vivid descriptions of the slave-ridden portions of the 
State, and some statements, most valuable, as coming 
from those having personal opportunity to observe 
the facts, of the manner in which slavery operates 
upon laboring white men. 

Mr. Marshall, January 20, said : 

"It is not for the sake of the slave, nor to 
' ameliorate his condition, that abolition is desirable. 
'Wherefore, then, object to slavery? Because it 
4 is ruinous to the whites — retards improvement — 

< roots out an industrious population — banishes the 
1 yeomanry of the country— deprives the spinner, 

< the weaver, the smith, the shoemaker, the car- 
' penter, of employment and support. There is no 
' diversity of occupation, no incentive to enterprise. 
6 Labor of every species is disreputable, because 
' performed mostly by slaves. Our towns are sta- 
6 tionary, our villages almost everywhere declining, 
' and the general aspect of the country marks the 
' curse of a wasteful, idle, and reckless population." 

Mr. Boiling, January 11, said : 
"The system of slavery drives from us the labor- 
the honest, industrious poor. The slave- 



204 

holder must have his slaves taught various trades — 
they must be coopers, carpenters, millers, black- 
smiths, ditchers, &c, which necessarily excludes 
the laboring white man from all of them to a great 
extent, and deprives him of those means, which he 
would otherwise enjoy, for the support of himself 
and family. The small freeholders are driven off 
also. * * * The sparseness of the white population 
appears almost an insurmountable obstacle in the 
way of the education of their children. * * * If 
we turn our eyes to that part of our country which 
lies below the mountains, and particularly below 
our rivers, it seems as if some judgment of Heaven 
had passed over it, and seared it. Fields once 
cultivated are now waste and desolate — the eye is 
no longer cheered by the rich verdure that decked 
it in other days ; no, sir, but fatigued by an inter- 
minable wilderness of worn-out, gullied, piny old 
fields." 

Mr. Moore, January 11, said: 

"In that part of the State below tide-water, the 
whole face of the country wears an appearance of 
almost utter desolation, distressing to the beholder. 
Tall and thick forests of pines are everywhere to 
be seen, encroaching upon once cultivated fields, 
and casting a deep gloom over the land, which 
looks a3 if nature mourned over the misfortunes 
of man. The very spot on which our ancestors 
landed, a little more than two hundred years ago, 
appears to be on the eve of again becoming the 
haunt of wild animals." 

Mr. Brodnax, January 19, said: 

" That slavery in Virginia is an evil, and a trans- 
cendent evil, it would be idle, and more than idle, 
for any human being to deny. Many of the finest 
portions, originally, of her territory, now exhibited 
scenes of wide-spread desolation and decay. "Who 
; can doubt that it is principally slavery that is at the 
; bottom of all?" 



205 

Mr. Bruce, January 19, said: 

"Our soil is almost everywhere exhausted. Its 
' character is written in indelible letters on every 
1 hill-side in the Commonwealth; he who runs may 
< read ; and the traveller needs no interpreter to tell 
' him that all is barrenness and exhaustion." 

Mr. Bruce was opposed to any interference with 
slavery, on the ground that no other labor but that 
of slaves could be obtained for a country so thor- 
oughly exhausted. White emigrants, he insisted, 
could not be induced to come in. Mr. Sims con- 
curred in this view. It certainly had in 1832, and 
has even now, a good deal of foundation. "With the 
progress of time, it will have less ; but it is not until 
the fresh lands of the West within available distances 
shall have been occupied, that free labor emigration 
can be expected to direct itself upon regions deso- 
lated by negro slaves. 

On a full review of this debate, it will be found 
to confirm the belief that it is idle to expect the 
abolition of slavery, where slaves, by their number 
and value, constitute so considerable a part of the 
property of a community as they did in Virginia in 
1832. There was a general admission of the disas- 
trous effects of slavery, and a general expression of 
desire that it might in some way be got rid of; but 
all this was of no avail in presence of the fact, that 
the slaves were worth to their owners one hundred 
millions of dollars. How to deal with that fact was 
a problem which could not be managed, and its 
solution was therefore passed over to posterity. 
The question has not been since disturbed in Vir- 
ginia, nor will it be, so long as slave markets keep 



206 

down any troublesome increase of slaves, and make 
slave-breeding profitable. 

The prohibition of the domestic slave trade by the 
Gulf States, or by Congress, would bring about 
emancipation speedily in Virginia. In the absence 
of that, slavery will yield, but later, to the advance 
of the free population of the North. But in neither 
contingency will the epoch of emancipation be 
hastened by persuasion, or retarded by irritation, one 
single day. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

The extension of slavery profitable to the slave-breeding States, but 
injurious to the other Southern States. The acquisition of Cuba 
injurious to all the Southern States. Political power the sole 
object of extending slavery. The agitation of slavery with a view 
to party ascendency. The South has not gained by agitation. 

It is not easy to perceive that the Southern States, 
as a wdiole, have any present pecuniary interest in 
the extension of slavery over new regions. That 
sort of interest is peculiar to Virginia, and to two or 
three other States engaged in the business of selling 
slaves. The major pecuniary interest of the South 
is to have slave labor cheap. To make it cheap, it 
is even desired by many persons at the South that 
the African slave trade should be reopened. Yet a 
course of policy, calculated to make it dear, is 
supported at the South with zealous unanimity, and 
quite as warmly in the Gulf States, which are large 
purchasers of slaves, as anywhere else. Everywhere 



207 

else, in South America, and in the West Indies, the 
constant effort of those engaged in prosecuting agri- 
culture by servile labor, has been to increase its 
supply and abundance. It is only in the United 
States, that we see in the same class the contrary 
effort, to make it scarce and high, by opening new 
and competing markets for it. If this is explicable 
in respect to Virginia and two or three States simi- 
larly situated, it is inexplicable, upon economical 
considerations, in respect to all the remainder. 

Never before, in any country, or under any system 
of labor, free or servile, have we seen those who 
own all the land and property of a community, and 
whose incomes depend upon its industry, endeavor- 
ing to diminish the number of laborers by opening 
up fields of enterprise elsewhere to draw them off. 

If, sometimes, emigration is viewed with compla- 
cency, it is where labor is superabundant, and where 
the emigrants engage in different pursuits from 
those of the parent country, and thereby give it new 
markets. It is upon this principle that Great Britain 
is satisfied with the annual transfer of large numbers 
of her people to agricultural colonies ; and it is this 
consideration, among others, which serves to recon- 
cile New England to the movement of her people 
to the "West. The South finds no such compensa- 
tion as this for the emigration of slave labor, but to 
the first loss of population is added the second loss 
of a new competition in the same pursuits. The 
people transferred from the old cotton States do not 
become purchasers of cotton in their new situations, 
but producers of it, and under circumstances of so 
much advantage, by reason of the fertility of new 



208 

soils, as seriously to impair the profit of its cultiva- 
tion in its former seats. It is in this way that the 
growth of the extreme Southwest, not only depletes 
the South of its wealth and people, but is the growth 
of a rival in the same pursuits, and thus inflicts a 
double injury. It is true, that such individual 
citizens of the South as are in a condition to 
emigrate, may escape this injury by shifting it upon 
others ; and that the number of those who can and 
do emigrate is considerable. The habits of the 
Southern people are migratory; their local attach- 
ments are feeble; and their property is chiefly 
movable. But if the emigrants are numerous, the 
non-emigrants are still more numerous, and even 
the emigrants do not avoid loss altogether. They 
can transfer their slaves, but they must sell their 
lands, and at the reduced prices which attend upon 
stationary population and the decay of general 
wealth. That important element of the increase of 
private fortunes, the constant enhancement of the 
value of real property which results from an aug- 
menting density of population, which is in full 
activity at the !N"orth, does not exist at all at the 
South, and cannot exist, until the policy of territo- 
rial enlargement is abandoned. That policy, which 
aims at political results only, sacrifices, in short, 
every pecuniary and industrial interest of the South, 
except the single one of slave-breeding, which is 
confined to a locality comparatively narrow and 
unimportant. 

The depreciation of lands, the decay of towns, and 
the general failure of works of public improvement, 
in the older Southern States, although attributable, 



209 

in part, to the system of slavery, are attributable, in 
part, also, to that unnatural diffusion of their popu- 
lation over new territories, which has been stimu- 
lated by political objects, and by the cupidity of 
slave-breeders. Many persons at the South, observ- 
ing the consequences of this diffusion, resist and de- 
nounce it. It was discussed ably and elaborately, a 
year since, in one of the commercial newspapers of 
Charleston, S. C, and the sound conclusion arrived 
at, that if new territories are to be occupied by slave 
labor, it can only be done by the ruin and exhaustion 
of the old slave States, unless the African slave trade 
is revived. Those who intelligently contemplate the 
spread of slavery over New Mexico and Central 
America, undoubtedly intend to renew the African 
slave trade, as the only means to the proposed end, 
if the civilized world will permit it, as happily it 
will not. Four millions of slaves, and the slaves in 
the United States will hardly reach that number in 
1860, may accomplish a good deal, but they cannot 
occupy a continent. Even within their present lim- 
its, their deficient numbers and enormous prices, 
cripple industrial operations, and seriously impair 
the value of land and of all other natural elements 
of wealth. Nothing, indeed, but the madness of 
party passions could blind 'the South to the practical 
folly of sending away their laboring population, of 
which they possess so little in comparison with their 
area and their resources. 

The case of the South is not that of a country 
which has a surplus and dangerous population which 
it desires to get rid of, and for which outlets must 
be found, from overruling considerations of safety, 

9* 



210 

and at whatever sacrifice of other interests. A 
large number of the Southern States voluntarily 
import slaves, and some of them, to an important 
extent. For the present, then, it is idle to represent 
that outlets are desired for slaves, or that their accu- 
mulation has become alarming. If this was really 
so, the domestic slave trade would be prohibited by 
the States, whose slave population is increased by it, 
but as yet we have seen no efficient and steady legis- 
lation having that object in view. And not only 
would the domestic slave trade be prohibited, but 
fugitive slave laws would be repealed, or cease to be 
enforced; and, instead of the pursuit of runaway 
slaves, they would be encouraged and assisted to 
get off. 

Undoubtedly, agriculture by slave labor, accord- 
ing to the methods now practiced by planters, re- 
quires a constant supply of new lands; but of these, 
a sufficiency exists, within the present limits of the 
slave States, for the wants of the present generation 
at least. To acquire still other new lands, is only 
to depreciate the value of those already possessed. 

It may be said, that extensions of territory arc 
now sought, because it is foreseen that they will be 
necessary for other generations, and for a distant 
future. That they will ever be needed at all, is a 
matter of doubtful and obscure speculation, and the 
masses of mankind are never influenced by remote 
objects. If theorists imagine that they perceive a 
good to be accomplished for those who are unborn, 
by extending the area of slavery, it is only the 
present advantage of such extension which causes it 
to be supported, and that present advantage is polit- 



211 

ical ascendency. Least of all men, can slaveholders 
claim to be acting in the interest of posterity. The 
whole system of slavery is a system of sacrificing 
permanent interests to temporary ones ; of robbing 
soils for immediate gains ; and of realizing to-day, 
reckless of the future, such advantage as may be 
reaped from the employment of a labor which hap- 
pens to be the most presently accessible. 

A striking instance of the sacrifice of pecuniary 
interests to the pursuit of political ascendency, is 
presented in the eagerness of the South to bring 
Cuba into the American Union. That measure, 
it is conceded, would annihilate the sugar inter- 
ests of Louisiana, Florida, and Texas, already large, 
and rapidly extending. If, by possibility, and as to 
this there is great uncertainty, Cuba might be a 
slave market for the slave-breeding States, it would 
not compensate for the loss of the slave market now 
found in our own sugar region. So long as the 
present Union continues, the acquisition of Cuba 
would be injurious to the South in every respect, 
except as a means of political ascendency. It might 
be otherwise, if a dissolution of the Union could be 
effected ; and it is probably with a view to its disso- 
lution, that Cuba is by many chiefly desired. The 
design is to add the control of the production of 
sugar, to the control of the production of cotton, 
and to place the independence and power of a 
Southern Confederacy upon the basis of these two 
greatest staples of commerce. 

It has been noticed that many persons in the Gulf 
States advocate the prohibition of the domestic slave 
trade, for the purpose of compelling Virginia, Mary- 



212 

land, and Kentucky, to retain the institution of sla- 
very. Whether, or not, the proposed measure would 
really have that effect, the fact that it is urged upon 
such grounds, is conclusive evidence that, with those 
who urge it, the slavery question is not one of labor 
or profits, but of political calculation. The editors 
in New Orleans propose to prohibit the domestic 
slave trade, not with a view to any interest of Louis- 
iana, not to keep up the price of slaves now in Louis- 
iana, and not from any alleged belief that the fur- 
ther importation of slaves is dangerous to Louisiana. 
In the opinion of these editors, more slaves are 
wanted; and to obtain them, they advise that the 
African slave trade be reopened. But, at the same 
moment, they are ready to cut Louisiana off from 
a supply of labor, which they believe to be needed, 
to the end that Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky, 
may still continue to be slave States, in which Louis- 
iana has no imaginable interest, except what she may 
be supposed to have in preserving the political power 
of that class of States. 

It is manifest that the people of the South are 
exceedingly sensitive upon the question of political 
power, and that this sensibility may be successfully 
aroused to reconcile them to great sacrifices in other 
respects. It did not exist, to any great extent, at 
the period of the formation of the present Govern- 
ment of the United States, and only arose when the 
determination was subsequently formed to maintain 
slavery as a permanent institution. It broke out in 
full vigor in the Missouri controversy in 1820, and 
has been greatly inflamed by the controversies in 
relation to the extension of slavery, which com- 



213 

menced in 1847, and have continued to the present 
time. The theory of a balance of power between 
the free and slave States, to be obtained by preserv- 
ing an equality in the number of each, and thus 
preserving an equality in the Senate of the United 
States, (a theory which Mr. Calhoun, if he did not 
originate it, devoted all his power and vehemence 
to enforce,) has done a good deal to keep alive the 
political jealousy of the South, and to give it point, 
direction, and form. 

It would be in vain to attempt argument, in 
opposition to a sensibility like this, chronic, morbid, 
and constantly fed by bad advisers. It will yield, 
at length, to time and events. The utter hopeless- 
ness of attempting to keep up a balance of power, 
between the free and slave States, will soon become 
manifest, and the ideas of men will then run in 
other channels. The census of 1860 will give to the 
free States two-thirds of the United States House of 
Representatives ; the census of 1870 will give them 
probably three-fourths. The theory of checks and 
balances, in presence of majorities so large, and so 
certain to grow continually larger, will be abandoned 
and forgotten. 

"When the moment arrives, in which reason shall 
resume its office, it will be discovered that during 
a political connection of seventy years, under the 
present Constitution, the free States have attempted 
no interference with the peculiar institution of the 
South ; that their own interests are promoted by the 
prosperity of the South, and would suffer from social 
disturbances in that quarter; and that although they 
undoubtedly wish to hasten the period of the extinc- 



214 

tion of slavery, their counsel and good offices may 
always be relied upon, to have that consummation 
reached by ways and processes in harmony with the 
real interests of those immediately concerned. 

But this moment, when the voice of reason can 
be heard, will never arrive, so long as the possible 
extension of slavery is held up to the passions of 
men, and so long as the struggle upon that point is 
going on. It will not arrive until that struggle 
shall be ended, definitively and unmistakably, and 
until the heats which it has evolved shall have sub- 
sided. 

This sensibility upon the question of political 
power, so long as it is kept up, banding all the slave 
States together in one common feeling, inspiring 
them with the belief that they have one common 
interest, and inculcating among them all adherence 
to the common cause as a point of honor, exerts 
an influence most unfavorable to their freedom of 
action. In the debates in the Virginia Legislature 
in 1832, those who spoke in opposition to any 
measures looking to emancipation insisted, with 
scarcely an exception, that such measures would be 
a betrayal by Virginia of the interests of her sister 
slave States, neighboring and remote; and that 
Virginia ought not to move, except in harmony 
with those States, and after consultation with them. 
At the present time, in Missouri, emancipation is 
resisted as an act of treachery to the South, or as an 
abandonment of what is called the cause of the 
South. So it really is, if the political ascendency 
of the South is a substantial and attainable good. 
And so, at any rate, it will be regarded, until the 



215 

idea of the possible political ascendency of the South 
is abandoned. 

Of late years, the political aspect of the slavery 
question has received a new form and modification, 
and the ascendency of a particular party has become 
so identified with the ascendency of a particular 
institution, that the success of one is viewed as the 
success of the other, and the strength of both is 
combined upon each. 

The slavery agitation commenced in 1835 by Mr. 
Calhoun, and those who sympathized with South 
Carolina nullification, aimed at a dissolution of the 
Union, to be effected by making the South a unit 
upon a sectional issue. The men concerned in that 
agitation, having since become the masters of the 
Democratic party, while they have not given up this 
original object as an ulterior one, have added the 
new object of controlling the Union while it lasts, 
through the same instrumentality of a combined 
South. Holding out the extension of slavery to 
adherents in one section, and patronage and official 
honors to adherents in another section ; able, by the 
first motive, to control the whole of one section, and 
only needing, by appeals to individual venality and 
ambition, to detach a small minority from the other 
section; they occupy, it must be confessed, a posi- 
tion of great advantage. 

It is, however, the effect of these operations upon 
the question of slavery, and not their effect upon 
the success of parties, which is now proposed to be 
discussed. 

One effect is, to produce a party interest in favor 
of extending slavery, and against its extinction any- 



216 

where, distinct from the sectional interest of that 
character which the South is supposed to have. 
Thus, emancipation in Missouri is dreaded, not 
merely as the loss of a State to the South, hut as 
the possible loss of a State to the Democratic party ; 
and in that view, is as much deprecated by the 
adherents of that party at the North as at the South. 
Its entire weight, through every available channel 
of influence and patronage, is brought to bear 
against emancipation in Missouri; and no man in 
that State would be permitted to occupy the posi- 
tion, at one and the same time, of a Democrat and 
an emancipationist. It is this same party interest, 
which is at the bottom of the effort now being made 
to provide for the legal establishment of slavery in 
the embryo State of Oregon, and in a new State 
which it is proposed to form out of the southern 
portion of California. The great necessity of these 
communities being population, and a population of 
negro slaves being practically unattainable, no other 
interest except that of a party triumph can be imag- 
ined for a policy which would certainly repel free 
immigration. If even the African slave trade could 
be revived, these States are on the wrong side of the 
continent to be benefited by it. 

Another effect, and this is still more important, 
is to keep up an agitation at the South most unfa- 
vorable to the spread of sound views in that quarter. 
The ascendency of a particular party being depend- 
ent upon keeping the public mind excited upon the 
topic of slavery, the agitation is maintained with or 
without reference to the interests of slaveholders, 
but at all events maintained, because party power 



217 

rests upon it. Just in proportion as sectional 
passions can be excited, is the influence of the 
violent magnified, while men who counsel modera- 
tion are suspected as lukewarm, or denounced as 
treacherous. It is notoriously not the slaveholders, 
specially as a class, who are now the most violent at 
the'South; and when the ultimate object of a disso- 
lution of the Union is openly reached, it is admitted 
that the slaveholders would be specially likely to 
oppose it. It has happened, in this case as in 
others, that a party movement, founded upon a 
subsisting interest, is pursued without exclusive 
reference to that interest, and even at the hazard of 
jeopardizing it. It has happened, also, that a party 
movement, having for its ostensible object the as- 
cendency of the South, is pursued with the actual 
effect (if not for the real purpose) of depriving that 
large portion of the people of the South, which is 
outside of the ranks of the dominant party, of any 
influence in public affairs. 

The rise in the value of slaves within five-and- 
twenty years, has been stated to be an adequate cause 
of the renewed zeal with which slavery has been since 
and is now upheld. Undoubtedly it is so ; but if an 
additional explanation is required, it is found in the 
political agitation of slavery, which was commenced 
in 1835, and which has ended in making adherence 
to a peculiar institution, at once a tenet of party 
faith, and a touchstone of loyalty to a section. 

It is hardly to be expected that this agitation, so 

profitable to those engaged in it, will ever voluntarily 

be given up by them. If put down, it must be by the 

good sense of the people of the South, where it origin- 

10 



218 

atecl, and where it has been kept up. The Kansas 
controversy came from the South. The abrogation of 
the Missouri Compromise, which renders inevitable 
another similar controversy for all our Territories 
below the parallel of latitude of thirty-six degrees 
thirty minutes, came from the South. The pro- 
jected appropriation, to the uses of slavery, of Cuba 
and of additional Mexican territory, comes from the 
South. These measures have compelled resistance 
and discussion in the free States. Resistance and 
discussion will still be forced upon them, so long as 
the extension of slavery within the present or future 
limits of the Union is attempted. If measures of 
agitation are set on foot, they must be met by 
measures of counter agitation. But will not the 
reflecting men of the South begin to inquire 
whether, while parties and individuals have gained 
by the agitation of the past twenty years, the South 
itself has gained anything? Has slavery gained 
anything, in either area or security ? or, rather, has 
it not lost in respect to both ? 

The experiment of governing the country by 
means of a unanimous South has had a long success, 
but it can have no other possible termination, than 
to provoke a hostile unanimity at the JSTorth, or such 
a degree of unanimity, as will transfer to that section 
the control of public affairs. If the existing agitation 
in favor of slavery is not put down by the conserva- 
tive men of the South, it certainly will be put down, 
at a period not remote, by a change in the locality 
of political power; and that change may be attended 
with heats and passions which will bring on an agi- 
tation of an altogether different character. 



219 

The union of the North would terminate political 
agitation in favor of slavery, by rendering such 
agitation unprofitable to parties and to individuals. 
If not terminated in that way, it will be at some 
period, and may be soon, by the loss of its main 
stimulus, which is the hope of the territorial ex- 
pansion of slavery. Whenever it becomes manifest 
that the exterior limits of slavery cannot be further 
enlarged, there is no longer any common object 
which can be held up to the passions of the slave 
States; and it will no longer be possible to wield 
them as a unit, against the tendencies to division 
which are found in the ambitious rivalries of indi- 
viduals, and in the conflicting interests of States. 

This period of the demonstrated impossibility of 
the further extension of slavery, looking to the con- 
tinent only, and without reference to Cuba, may be 
much nearer at hand than is commonly supposed. 
So large a mass of emigrants from the free States 
and from Europe may be thrown upon Missouri, 
Arkansas, and Kansas, in a single lustrum, as to 
shut out slavery from any possible entrance into the 
existing territories of the Union. What may happen 
in this respect, remains to be seen ; but the con- 
quest of Kansas has given to free institutions pro- 
digious advantages, and it will be from the lack of 
generalship, and not from the lack of men and 
resources, if the enemy is not now followed up with 
instant vigor and mortal blows, giving him no 
breathing spell, and not a moment's pause for re- 
cruiting, ox a change of tactics. 



220 



CHAPTER XV. 

Different views of the manner in which slavery may be extinguished. 
Slave labor immediately cheap, under certain circumstances, but 
ruinous as a' system. The Southern States have grown poorer by 
it. Mr. Tarver's description of the results of cotton-growing. Free 
labor will encroach upon slavery, because really more efficient and 
profitable. 

When slavery in the United States shall cease to 
expand its territorial area, whether its further ex- 
pansion be arrested by political obstacles, by the 
prior occupation of free labor, or for the want of re- 
gions adapted to slave labor, new questions will ad- 
vance to a solution. Of the two systems of labor 
pressing against each other with the advance of 
population, territorial progress being at an end, 
which will yield, and by what processes and with 
what results to the interests connected with the sys- 
tem displaced? 

That negro slavery, as it exists in this country, 
intermixed with a white population, and pressed 
upon by the white population in the free States, 
must be a temporary institution, if confined to a 
fixed area, and must yield at length to the progress 
of population, is admitted by most of its supporters, 
although stoutly denied by some of them. But there 
is very little accord, among either its supporters or 
opponents, as to the precise process by which its 
extinction will be reached. 

The statement of this process most commonly 
made, is, that when a certain density of population 
shall be reached, the wages of rude labor will fall so 
low, that the labor of slaves will be worth no more 



221 

than the cost of their subsistence, and that no motive 
will then exist to retain them in the condition of 
slavery. It is by assuming what this density is, and 
calculating when it will be reached, that Judge 
Tucker of Virginia, in his Notes upon the United 
States, fixed upon 1923 as the probable epoch of the 
termination of slavery in this country. 

If it be true that the expansive power of popu- 
lation must finally reduce wages so low as to destroy 
slavery, it is certainly not true that wages are re- 
duced uniformly as population becomes dense. 
That an operation precisely the reverse of this has 
been going on in this country within the last thirty 
years, is a matter of common knowledge. Wages 
depend directly upon the proportion between the 
number of laborers and the demand for labor, and it 
certainly may and does happen, in some cases, that 
while laborers increase, the call for them increases 
still faster. 

It results, therefore, that whatever may be be- 
lieved to be the ultimate effect of a continually-in- 
creasing population, it may not reduce wages for a 
long period; and that slavery, even if it cannot es- 
cape a final extinction from this cause, may, not- 
withstanding, enjoy a considerable term of renewed 
vigor and augmenting profits. This, as a matter of 
fact, the present generation are witnessing in the 
United States. 

It does not appear to be altogether certain, that 
the population, within the slave States themselves, 
would ever become so dense, aside from some exter- 
nal pressure, as to throw oft* slavery. The system 
tends continually to the expulsion of the white labor- 



222 

ers ; and that being assumed to be accomplished, the 
number of slaves may be and will be graduated to the 
demand for them. They would cease to be raised, 
unless they were valuable enough to be retained in 
the condition of slavery. A surplus of slaves is a 
phenomenon which has never yet been witnessed in 
the history of the institution, and it seems impossible 
that it should be of long continuance. If the in- 
definite duration of slavery, aside from external 
pressure, is impossible, it is not because a surplus of 
slaves may arise, but because the multiplication of 
free laborers cannot be prevented; and that slavery 
might not permanently prevent such a multiplication 
of free laborers as would be fatal to itself, is by no 
means clear. This, however, is a purely speculative 
question, because slavery in the Southern States 
will not be left to work out its fate in the popula- 
tions in the midst of which it exists, but will be 
acted upon by the altogether diverse social organ- 
ization and population of the free States. 

Undoubtedly, a fall in wages to the standard of 
the cost of raising and subsisting negroes would 
destroy slavery; but if that is the only way in 
which it is to be terminated peacefully, the case is 
by no means flattering. A conclusion which is a 
sound one is not, to be sure, to be rejected because 
it is disagreeable. If negro slavery is to endure, 
aside from violent catastrophes, until white laborers 
become so multiplied and so miserable as to be 
commanded at rates corresponding to the support 
of slaves, it must even be so ; but in that case, one 
species of slavery will only have been substituted 
for another. 



223 

It does not seem to be yet agreed, which of the 
two kinds of labor is now the cheapest; and the 
facts we observe are apparently contradictory. If 
slave labor is not the cheapest, applied in agricul- 
ture, why is it employed, and why do men pay so 
much for the opportunity of employing it, that is, 
pay such high prices for slaves ? If it is the cheap- 
est, how does it happen that the communities which 
make use of it are nevertheless less prosperous than 
those which use a more expensive labor? 

The philosophy of slavery is exceedingly simple. 
It costs but little to raise the negro, still less to steal 
him from Africa. By whichever process obtained, 
he is hardy and docile ; and if not docile, he may 
be made so by the lash. By kind treatment, cajol- 
ery, intimidation, or flogging, or by all combined, 
he may be made to perform a vast deal of work; 
and the food and clothing which suffice for him 
are on a scale of expense, which admits of no 
reduction consistent with the existence of human 
beings. It would seem that the employers of a 
labor like this, could outlive competition in any 
pursuit to which it is adapted. 

It is found, however, that there are drawbacks in 
working this system in practice; and it is even 
doubtful whether, while it promises profits so enor- 
mous, it produces any at all. In many instances 
in which wealth is created where slave labor is 
employed, we easily perceive that this wealth is only 
an appropriation and conversion of some previously 
existing natural wealth. In other instances, we 
perceive that this labor is not even self-sustaining, 
and that virgin soils are worked out, without leaving 



224 

any equivalents to represent them. In a matter 
depending upon so many computations, and where 
some of the data are necessarily vague and uncer- 
tain, there is abundance of room for diversity of 
opinion; but it is at least doubtful, if the applica- 
tion of two centuries of slave labor in the Southern 
States has produced, upon the whole, any valuable 
result, and whether all existing forms of property 
at the South are worth so much as the natural 
fertility of its lands which has been used up. 

The late Mr. Tarver, of Missouri, in an essay 
upon Manufactures in the South and "West, pub- 
lished a few years since, and which may be found 
in the "Industrial Resources of the South and West" 
presents, in a very clear light, the matter of fact that 
the South does not appear to have gained anything 
in wealth by all its efforts. He imputes this failure, 
however, not to the character of the labor employed, 
but to its misdirection ; while he insists, as we shall 
presently see, that the same labor, transferred from 
agriculture to manufactures, would overcome all 
competition. As a writer, Mr. Tarver displays great 
candor and ability, and it is only the blinding and 
infatuating influences of the peculiar institution, to 
which he was wedded, which can explain the strange 
hopes in which he indulges in respect to manufac- 
tures. What the results of slave labor actually had 
been in agriculture he exhibits, very strikingly, in 
the following passages : 

"Examples may be found in our own country of 
' States having become poorer by a steady perse- 
' verance in an unwise application of their labor. 
4 Such is the case in the Atlantic States south of the 



225 

i Potomac, as I think will be granted by every 
' intelligent and candid individual who is acquainted 
' with the country, and I think it will be admitted 

* that these States are poorer than they were twenty 
' years ago. There is a small increase in the number 
' of laborers, and there may have been something 
' gained by skill ; but the great source of all wealth 
' in an agricultural country — the soil — has been 
' greatly deteriorated and diminished. 

"If one acquainted with the present condition of 
' the Southwest were told that the cotton-growing 
' district alone had sold the crop for fifty millions 
' of dollars per annum for the last twenty years, he 
' would naturally conclude that this must be the 
' richest community in the world. He might well 
' imagine that the planters all dwell in palaces, upon 
' estates improved by every device of art, and that 
c their most common utensils were made of the 
'precious metals; that canals, turnpikes, railways, 
' and every other improvement, designed either for 

* use or ornament, abounded in every part of the 
' land. He would conclude that the most splendid 
' edifices, dedicated to the purposes of religion and 
' learning, were everywhere to be found, and that 
' all the liberal arts had here found their reward and 
' a home. But what would be his surprise, when 
' told that, so far from dwelling in palaces, many of 
' these planters dwell in habitations of the most 
' primitive construction ; that, instead of any artist- 
' ical improvement, this rude dwelling was sur- 
' rounded by cotton fields, or probably by fields 
' exhausted, washed into gullies, and abandoned; 
' that instead of canals, the navigable streams remain 
' unimproved ; that the common roads of the country 
' were scarcely passable; that the edifices erected 
' for the accommodation of religion and learning 
'were frequently built of logs, "and covered with 
' boards ; and that the fine arts were but little 
' encouraged or cared for. Upon receiving this 



226 

' information, lie would imagine that this was surely 
c the country of misers — that they had been hoard- 

< ing up all the money of the world, to the great 

* detriment of the balance of mankind. But his 
' surprise would be greatly increased, when inform- 
' ed, that instead of being misers and hoarders of 
' money, these people were generally scarce of it, 
4 and many of them embarrassed and bankrupt. I 
' think it would puzzle the most observing indi- 
1 vidual in the country to account for so strange a 
' result. ISTo mind can look back upon the history 

< of this region for the last twenty years, and not 

< feel convinced that the labor bestowed in cotton- 

< growing has been a total loss to this part of the 
' country. The country of its production has gained 

* nothing, and lost much. More than all, in the 
' transportation of its produce, it has transported 
6 much of the productive and essential principles of 
' its soil, which can never be returned, thereby 
1 sapping the very foundation of its wealth." 

Mr. Tarver was "puzzled" and so continue to be 
all those like him, who refuse to see that slave labor 
is unproductive, wasteful, and ruinous. 

A system is to be judged in all its parts and by 
all its effects. What is made directly out of coerced 
labor, may be lost indirectly by its effect upon the 
non-enslaved classes; and that is what in fact we 
observe. It produces in them pride, idleness, 
extravagance, and thriftlessness ; destroys enter- 
prise and invention ; and leaves all the processes of 
industry unimproved, primitive, slovenly, and waste- 
ful. The decay to which the system tends is swift 
and inevitable. Many of its advocates, even, admit 
that it cannot exist without continual reinforcements 
outside of itself; that is, without continual supplies 
of fresh land. 



227 

In the United States House of ^Representatives, 
April, 1856, Judge "Warner of Georgia, who is 
reputed to be a gentleman of more than ordinary 
sagacity and reflection, used the following lan- 
guage : 

"There is not a slaveholder, in this House or out 
4 of it, but who knows perfectly well, that, whenever 
4 slavery is confined within certain specified limits, 
4 its future existence is doomed ; it is only a question 
4 of time as to its final destruction. You may take 
* any single slaveholding county in the Southern 
4 States, in which the great staples of cotton and 
4 sugar are cultivated to any extent, and confine the 
4 present slave population within the limits of that 
4 county. Such is the rapid natural increase of the 
4 slaves, and the rapid exhaustion of the soil in the 
4 cultivation of those crops, (which add so much to 
4 the commercial wealth of the country,) that in a 
4 few years it would be impossible to support them 
4 within the limits of such county. Both master 
4 and slave would be starved out; and what would 
4 be the practical effect in auy one county, the same 
4 result would happen to all the slaveholding States. 
4 Slavery cannot be confined within certain specified 
4 limits without producing the destruction of both 
4 master and slave; it requires fresh lands, plenty 
4 of wood and water, not only for the comfort and 
4 happiness of the slave, but for the benefit of the 
4 owner." 

Only in exceptional spots specially favored by 
nature, where fertility is exhaustless, or spontane- 
ously renewed, can the system be permanently 
maintained. Some of the fairest portions of this 
country have been already reduced by it to aban- 
donment and desolation. It is at this day, in the 
immediate vicinage of the National Capital, in a 
region settled before New England was, that the 



228 

inhabitants, more feeble than the aboriginal natives, 
are unable to repress the multiplication of wild 
animals, and that, in the words of a Virginian, " the 
wolf returns to howl over the desolation of slavery." 

The cheapness of slave labor is thus a delusion 
and a snare. Nothing promises fairer, but nothing 
works more badly. And yet, after all its failures, it 
still has advocates. The causes which combine to 
produce results are so numerous and so compli- 
cated, that it is possible to ascribe an admitted fact 
to a wrong cause; and where there is a possibility of 
this sort, men generally resort to it, where the true 
cause is something connected with their immediate 
indulgence, or gratifies their passions. The obvious 
decay of the South is therefore imputed to tariffs, 
to an undue expenditure of the public moneys in 
other sections, to robberies by the North through 
the contrivances of commerce, to an exclusive devo- 
tion to a few staples, to every cause, in short, except 
to slavery. And the remedy recommended is not 
free labor, but a dissolution of the Union. 

So tenacious is this infatuation, that, after a 
demonstration by experience that slavery is bad 
economy when applied to agriculture, it is insisted 
that it will succeed if applied to manufactures. In 
an address, delivered as late as 1850, Governor 
Hammond, of South Carolina, argues the point 
elaborately, and with every appearance of sincere 
conviction. The principal item of cost in manufac- 
turing, next to the raw material, being labor ; must 
not the South be able to drive New England, and 
even Great Britain, out of the market, " when eighteen 
< or at most nineteen dollars will cover the whole necessary 



229 

1 annual cost of a full supply of wholesome and palatable 
'food" for a slave, and when, in addition, the Sonth 
is able to " extend the hours of labor beyond any of its 
rivals? " Or, as the matter is stated by Mr. Tarver : 

''Whatever the price maybe, none can produce 
6 any given article as cheap with hired labor, as he 
' who owns it himself. It matters nothing to him 
' how low others can produce the article ; he can pro- 

* duce it lower still, so long as it is the best use that 
1 he can make of his labor, and so long as his labor 
' is worth keeping. It is on this principle that the 

* Southwest is destined to monopolize the manufac- 
' ture of the whole cotton crop of the United States." 

And yet nothing would seem to be plainer, than 
that if slavery has failed in a pursuit, in which much 
of the labor is of the rudest character, it must fail 
more signally in a pursuit in which a certain amount 
of skill and training is absolutely necessary. 

An error which still survives, after its practical 
exposure on a great scale has been made patent, 
must be an exceedingly plausible one; and so, in 
truth, this error of the cheapness of slave labor 
really is. The facts which seem to support it are 
presented every day, and are forced upon the notice 
of all who are in contact with slavery; the facts 
which overthrow it require a degree of attention 
and comparison which they are not able or not in- 
clined to give to them. It is in vain to deny that 
slave labor, in its immediate application, where it is 
used, costs less than free labor. If it was not so, it 
certainly would not be used. It is not sufficient to 
say that the slave performs less labor than the free- 
man, that he performs his work badly, that he 
breaks his tools, that his position makes him a 



230 

shirk and thief, and that no stimulus to exertion is 
so efficient as wages. All this being true, and all 
this being known to be true, slave labor is neverthe- 
less employed, and not because the employers are 
under any delusion as to the positive or comparative 
value of a day's work of a slave, but because they 
know that, taking cost and value together, it an- 
swers their purpose better than anything else within 
their reach. There is no judgment so unerring as 
that of individuals, concentrated and sharpened by 
their own interests in the conduct of their own con- 
cerns. There is no test of a practical truth so reli- 
able, as the observation of what actually takes place 
in common life. Motives of pride, or of indulgence, 
or the mere force of habit even, may be suggested 
as the explanation of slavery in certain cases; but 
gangs of slaves are not purchased for work at high 
prices, except upon intelligent and well-considered 
calculations of interest. And it must be recollected, 
that the existing high price of slaves may hereafter 
disappear as an element in the cost of slave labor, 
and that the price of a negro need be only the ex- 
pense of raising him, or, if the foreign slave trade be 
permitted, the expense of stealing him. 

Of the employment of slave labor in many Euro- 
pean colonies at certain periods, it might be sug- 
gested that it was the only labor to be had. But 
upon what ground shall we explain its employment 
in this country, in the midst of a white population ; 
or the other fact, which we observe wherever slaves 
are numerous at the South, that the white popula- 
tion finds employment difficult to be obtained, and 
is driven to a vast and continuous emigration? 



231 

Upon what ground but this, that where it is em- 
ployed, and in comparison with any other labor 
which now exists there, it is the cheapest which can 
be had? 

But this does not prove that slave labor is cheaper 
than free white labor, necessarily, or under all 
circumstances, but only that it is cheaper than that 
sort of free white labor which has been enfeebled 
and demoralized by the influences of slavery. It 
only proves that that institution may produce such a 
degree of idleness and ignorance among the whites 
within its reach, that they cannot successfully com- 
pete even with the negro. But, in comparing 
systems, we must contrast slave labor with free 
white labor, in the condition to which it is brought 
by the training of free communities ; and wherever 
we are able to make this comparison a matter of 
actual test, the result is always in favor of free labor. 
At New Orleans, under an almost tropical sun, 
white men, brought up to habits of steady and 
continuous industry, are able to supplant slaves in 
the rudest and severest employments. In fact, in 
all employments, however apparently rude, if they 
are one single remove above the simplicity of a 
tread-mill, intelligence, contrivance, and dexterity, 
play an important part ; and in most employments, 
they are of vastly more consequence than mere 
muscle. And it is noticeable, that among the ten- 
dencies of the present times, growing out of the 
progress of invention and civilization, is the dimi- 
nution of the proportion in industrial operations, of 
that sort of human labor which calls for muscle 
only. The less expensive powers of animals, of the 



232 

waterfall, and especially of steam, are made availa- 
ble, by ingenious appliances and adaptations, to a 
constantly-increasing proportion of the work which 
human necessities require to be done. The sphere 
of rude labor is being narrowed, and inferior races 
of men are less and less in demand. When corn 
was ground by hand, and mines were drained by 
the bucket, slaves, and even negro slaves, had a 
value which they no longer possess. And the 
marked tendency of the age is, still further to cur- 
tail the requirement for them, and the uses to which 
they can be economically applied. 

In addition to the error of comparing slave labor 
with free labor, as it exists where it is blighted 
physically and morally by slavery, those who believe 
in the economy of negro slaves fail to see that, even 
if their employment might be advantageous to indi- 
viduals in particular cases, it might still be ruinous 
as a system, and, when all its influences and conse- 
quences are taken into the account, more expensive 
than the opposite system. 

"We shall be under no liability to mistake, if we 
observe what occurs in the agriculture on both sides 
of the long line which divides the free and slave 
States, confining our attention to the range within 
which this agriculture is directed to the same pur- 
suits, and under substantially the same conditions 
of climate and soil. Tariffs, peace and war, all 
circumstances of government and markets, are alike 
on both sides of the line. They differ in nothing 
but their systems of labor, and there can be no pos- 
sibility of error in ascribing to this difference the 
comparative prosperity of the one, and the compara- 



233 

tive decay of the other. And we thus find, that as 
a system, and looking to all results direct and 
collateral, free labor is most efficient, most econom- 
ical, and most profitable. 

It might be difficult to satisfy a farmer in Mary- 
land, or a farmer in Kentucky, that, under the 
circumstances in which they are now placed, they 
would individually do better to substitute free labor 
for slave labor. Yet they cannot fail to see that 
wheat in Pennsylvania and corn in Ohio are pro- 
duced at a greater profit than by themselves, as 
demonstrated by the higher rents paid in those 
States, or, what is the same thing, the higher prices 
paid for farms ; and that the system of labor which 
leaves this larger margin of profit, represented by 
the rent or prices of land, is, as a whole, better than 
their own. What is thus shown to be true in wheat 
and corn, will be found to be true in cotton, when 
the free labor system reaches the latitude of that 
plant. Indeed, it is already found to be true by the 
experience of the German settlements in Texas. 

There is a large portion of the agricultural labor 
of free communities which is not hired labor at all, 
but the industry of the freeholder and his family 
applied to his own estate. The thrift and economy 
of that system of husbandry, combined with that 
attachment to land which is said to be an Anglo- 
Saxon passion, and with that notion of personal 
independence associated in the ideas of the yeomanry 
of the free States with the occupation of their own 
acres, make up a most formidable antagonism to the 
institution of slavery. The men bred in the habits 
of free communities, who work their freeholds with 

10* 



234 

their own hands, have both the ability and the will 
to buy out the planter, wherever they are forced into 
contact with him. His slave labor may be cheap 
and strong, but it carries too heavy a load of idlers. 
The comparative prices of land, under the two sys- 
tems of management, show unerringly which is the 
most profitable, and which must give way to the 
other. 

It is not, then, in the aspect of slave labor as 
being temporarily and apparently cheap, that we 
are to look for its extinction only when a certain 
density of population shall bring with it a free labor 
still cheaper; but it is in the aspect of slave labor, 
as being permanently and really dear, that we are 
to look for its gradual displacement, and perhaps 
final extinction, by the advance of the better system 
of the free States. The ownership and occupation 
of land must continually tend to pass to those who 
can pay the most for it; that is, to those whose 
system of labor and management is the best. The 
encroachment of the stronger system upon the 
weaker may be slow, but is inevitable, and will be 
irresistible. 

The extension of the free-labor system to the 
Gulf of Mexico will not be prevented by climate, 
but it may be by other causes. Its present power 
to advance may be diminished by a decay of its 
vigor, and the opposing system may, by compres- 
sion, acquire some additional capacity to resist it. 
It is equally useless and impossible to predict the 
fortunes of a remote future. What seems to be 
certain, and that is all which concerns the present 
generation, is, that in the actual condition of the 



235 

two systems, that of free labor is the strongest, and 
will take possession of the border slave States at a 
period not distant. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

The decline of slavery will not be the decline of the South, but will 
benefit the South. The evils apprehended at the South, from the 
shutting up of slavery, are imaginary. Slaves will not multiply 
beyond the demand for them, and the fall in their price will be in- 
sensible. The slave-breeding States alone interested in the exten- 
sion of slavery. The question of race connected with the question 
of slavery. 

The absolute increase of the evil of slavery in the 
United States since the Revolution has been great; 
but, in comparison with the forces with which it may 
be combated, its extent has diminished. Yast and 
appalling as it is, it is not absolutely hopeless. If 
the limit of its territorial expansion is not yet 
reached, it soon w T ill be, and the commencement of 
its decline will then be not far distant. 

The people of the South have been taught to re- 
gard this decline of slavery, which will result from 
shutting it up, as the catastrophe of all their pros- 
perity. To surround them with a cordon of free 
States, is, in the language which they often use, to 
surround them with a circle of fire, to be gradually 
narrowed, until they perish in the flames. 

But is it certain, that the South will perish when 
slavery perishes ? Is slavery a thing with which the 
South must sink or swim, with which its existence 
is identified, and with which it must share a common 



fate ? Or is it only art industrial organization, which 
may be changed for a better one, not only without 
injury, but with large and obvious benefits? It is 
surely not credible that any considerable portion of 
the people of the South, would not prefer to see an 
ignorant, degraded, and servile population substi- 
tuted by one intelligent and free. They would 
surely regard such a substitution as in itself desi- 
rable ; and if they resist it, it is because it seems im- 
practicable, because the necessary present sacrifice 
of property in the value of slaves appears impossible 
to be borne, or because they apprehend mischiefs 
from the attempt to make the proposed substitution, 
more intolerable than the evils to be escaped. If 
outlets are denied to their African population, will 
it not increase and multiply, not only until slaves 
become worthless and the vast sum of two thousand 
millions of dollars represented by them is sunk, but 
until every species of property at the South becomes 
worthless, and the whites must either exterminate 
the black race, or fly to save their own lives? 
The errors of opinion in which these questions 
originate, are by no means to be stigmatized as ab- 
surd. They are sufficiently plausible to find many 
believers even at the North, and it is not wonderful 
that they are generally current at the South, where 
political agitators are interested to propagate them, 
and where a practical censorship of the press has 
almost extinguished any freedom of discussion. 
Nor is it wonderful that those who are to be, in their 
own persons, or in the persons of their children, the 
victims of a catastrophe, if it shall actually occur, 
should regard even its possibility with apprehension, 



237 

and feel called upon to avert, not merely its certain 
approach, but even the danger of it. The feigned 
alarm of politicians is in itself entitled to no atten- 
tion, but the sincere anxieties of a great community, 
in respect to topics so connected with their essential 
fortunes, are entitled to respectful treatment. 

Nor is this matter interesting only to the South. 
If it could even be assumed that the sentiment of 
national patriotism no longer exists, and that no 
feeling of fraternal sympathy for the South is enter- 
tained at the North, for either of which assumptions 
there is happily no foundation in truth; the North 
has at least such a selfish interest in the prosperity 
of the South, growing out of the relations of com- 
merce, as must forbid indifference to its present 
condition and future prospects. 

The truth really is, that the increase of negro 
slaves in the United States is wholly attributable to 
the continual enlargement of the area upon which 
they are employed, and to that combination of a 
slave-breeding region with, a slave-working region, 
which is peculiar to this country. This increase is 
exceptional. It is observed nowhere else. It will 
cease with the causes which produce it. The num- 
ber of slaves will adapt itself to the limits of their 
profitable occupation. The breeding and raising of 
slaves will fall off, as the prices of slaves fall off. 
No population, slave or free, can pass the boundaries 
fixed by the necessities of subsistence. 

That freed negroes will not multiply in this coun- 
try, or, if at all, but slowly, is admitted on all hands. 

The real difficulty is, not that negro slaves will 
increase to a dangerous degree upon a fixed area, 



238 

or that the whites, who constitute two-thirds of the 
people of the South, and who have always increased 
more rapidly than the blacks, will ever be outnum- 
bered and expelled by them; but that the cause 
Which will prevent the increase of slaves upon a 
fixed area, being a necessary fall in their price, is 
not agreeable to a region to which the South is ac- 
customed to look for its opinions. This difficulty 
lies at the bottom of the whole controversy in re- 
spect to the extension of slavery. 

The alarms upon this subject, which are excited 
at the South, will be sensibly abated, by a cool and 
careful consideration of it. 

It has already been noticed, that within existing 
external limits, the fields for slave labor not yet 
touched are so large, that no abrupt abandonment 
of it is likely to be forced. 

Even if some further territorial expansion be given 
to slavery in the United States, it cannot be exten- 
sive. Its utmost limits must be soon reached, if 
they are not so already. Sooner or later, the slave- 
holders must reconcile themselves to the conse- 
quences, whatever they may be, of finding no 
remaining outlet for their institution. At the 
utmost, it is only a question of the time when this 
condition of things shall be reached; and, under all 
the circumstances, the possible range of this time is 
not great. No amount of political activity and good 
fortune can enlarge it much. 

That slavery in the Southern States, when its 
external limits are fixed, must decline, and perhaps 
be extinguished, is a proposition which may be 
stated in a single sentence, and be comprehended 



239 

at a single glance; bnt the fact itself must be 
spread over a long period of time and more than 
one generation, be realized by insensible gradations, 
and be attended at every step by palliatives and 
compensations. As the historians of the present 
day are unable to fix the precise time when villenage 
terminated in England, so future historians may be 
unable to fix the precise time when slavery termi- 
nated in the United States. The destruction in a 
single day of the convertible value of two thousand 
millions of dollars in slave property, would convulse 
the whole social fabric of the community in which 
it exists. The same thing, protracted over half a 
century, would scarcely attract notice. The same 
causes, which would reduce the value of slaves, 
would raise the price of land. The institution of 
property would suffer no shock, although its forms 
might undergo a change. 

This view of the subject, to be sure, excludes the 
idea of any catastrophe of the system by servile 
insurrection ; but it is not those who understand the 
subject best, and are most interested in it, who 
most readily entertain that idea. So far as servile 
insurrection may be apprehended from foreign inva- 
sion, it would not depend upon the proportion of 
races ; and, looking to the long history of the system 
where it has been left to work itself out without 
extrinsic interference, the capacity of the Caucasian 
to hold the negro in slavery, so long as he chooses 
to do so, is a thoroughly-established and reliable 
fact. 

And although it is undoubtedly true that the 
probability of servile insurrection, whatever it may 



240 

be, greater or less, increases with an increasing 
proportion of the servile class, yet it is quite certain 
that that proportion is not now dangerous in any 
State in the Union, and will not become so, if the 
States upon the Gulf of Mexico, which are most 
threatened, will co-operate in useful and feasible 
legislation. And neither in the Gulf States nor in 
the Southern States, as a whole, will the positive or 
relative numbers of the servile race be increased by 
prohibiting its territorial expansion ; the only effect 
of outlets being to stimulate a rate of increase which 
maintains population notwithstanding the external 
drain. 

In that considerable portion of the South which 
purchases slaves, a fall in the price of slaves has its 
advantages as well as disadvantages, and it would 
seem that opinions there are by no means agreed as 
to which preponderate. South Carolina imported 
slaves from Africa down to the last moment before 
the importation was prohibited by the United States; 
and the reopening of the African slave trade, so 
that slaves may become abundant and cheap, is now 
an object extensively and avowedly desired in the 
States which raise cotton and sugar. 

It is upon the slave-breeding States only that a 
fall in the price of slaves would be viewed as an 
evil without compensations, and it is here that we 
may look for the most obstinate defence of that 
policy of furnishing outlets for slavery, which has 
so long and so cruelly deluded us. It is this class 
of States which alone have any pecuniary interests 
to be subserved by the extension of slavery, which 
is supported by the slave-working States, only 



241 

because they arc willing to sacrifice economical 
considerations for the sake of political power. 

Undoubtedly, Eastern Virginia would be glad to 
obtain, at one and the same time, cotton-State prices 
for negroes and free-State prices for lands, but the 
conjunction of the two things would seem to be 
impossible. The sale of negroes may go on, per- 
haps, for many years, but would be prohibited by 
the Gulf States themselves, the moment it was dis- 
covered to be proceeding at a rate which threatened 
to make Virginia a free State. The tone of the 
press in the extreme South is too decisive and unan- 
imous to leave a doubt upon this point. Virginia 
may sell negroes, but only upon condition that she 
does not sell too many. She will never be permitted 
to make herself a free State by selling them. The 
vigilance of the South is aroused against that danger, 
and will never be put to sleep again. 

If this view, of the subject is correct, and if at last 
the prosperity of public works, the development of 
commerce, and the enhancement of real estate, to 
which the intelligent men of Virginia are unques- 
tionably looking as the consequences of being rid 
of slavery, can only be attained at the cost of some 
sacrifices in their slave property, those sacrifices 
may be more cheerfully borne, when seen to be the 
necessary price of a good which is desired. 

A patient who is called upon to submit to an 
operation, even one so little painful and alarming 
as the extraction of a tooth, can hardly 'be expected 
to appreciate the full force of that logic, so sound in 
itself and so entirely satisfactory even to friendly 
bystanders, which teaches that the operation is in- 
11 



242 

evitable, and that nothing is gained, and something 
lost, by postponing it. Allowances are to be made 
for natural irresolution, and even querulousness will 
not provoke the anger of the considerate. The 
selling of negroes is an inveterate habit of the Vir- 
ginians ; and if they postpone its abandonment to 
the last possible moment, it will occasion no sur- 
prise. Abandon it, however, they must, sooner or 
later, by the termination of the territorial expansion 
of slavery, and possibly before that time, by the 
refusal of the Gulf States longer to receive their 
slaves. And abandon it they must, also, with their 
population of slaves not sensibly diminished. To 
shift that population upon others, is clearly impos- 
sible. 

In fine, the evils apprehended by the South, from 
prohibiting the territorial expansion of slavery, are 
either wholly imaginary, or are greatly exaggerated, 
or are inevitable at some period under any probable 
course of events, or will be realized so gradually, 
and with so many attending compensations, as not 
to be perceived. To destroy slavery is not to destroy 
the South, but to change its social organization for 
the better; and such a change is not only practi- 
cable, but may be reached without sacrifice and 
without convulsion. Nothing will be hazarded by 
it, except that sort of political power which, in 
practice, is only a party ascendency for the benefit 
of individuals, and which really excludes almost 
one-half of the people of the South itself, from office 
and public honors. It is only an abstraction, except 
as a means to some useful end ; and nothing can be 
so absurd as to retain an admitted evil, for the mere 



243 

purpose of founding a dynasty upon a community 
of misfortune. 

The true interest of the South is to keep the evil 
of slavery within the narrowest possible bounds, and 
to diminish its proportion to the means of relief and 
to the general resources of the nation. If it is to be 
finally overcome by substituting the institutions, 
and, to a certain extent, the population, of the free 
States, the period of its extinction will be hastened 
by reducing its bulk, and augmenting the forces 
which act against it. It may be that some scheme 
of colonization at the general charge of the nation 
will yet be found to be practicable, not to remove 
the evil, which is clearly beyond the reach of such a 
remedy, but to mitigate it; but never, if the mis- 
chief is suffered to expand in proportion, or nearly 
in proportion, to the general advance of the country 
in wealth and numbers. 

The question of slavery in the United States is 
said to be complicated and embarrassed by a ques- 
tion of color and race, but it is by no means certain 
that this is any addition to its real difficulties. So 
far as it is desirable to get rid of the negroes, 
their very inferiority as a race will accomplish that ; 
nothing being more clear, than that an inferior race, 
except in the condition of domestication, or slavery, 
will not multiply in the presence of a superior race. 
If it be supposed, that in lieu of the four millions 
of Africans now held as chattel slaves at the South, 
four millions of Anglo-Saxons were so held, in the 
condition of ignorance and degradation which would 
be necessarily implied in such a supposition ; would 
not the evil be more dangerous at present, and re- 



244 

quire a longer time for its cure, if, indeed, it would 
be manageable at all ? 

The truth is, the peculiar moral and intellectual 
conformation of the negro, which renders it so easy 
to enslave him, and which makes him so little dan- 
gerous as a slave, makes it safe to liberate him. 
Whether we base our conclusions upon what we 
observe of his characteristics, or upon the history of 
emancipation in the British and French Colonies, 
there is no reason to suppose, that even the liber- 
ation instantly and in mass of the slaves at the 
South, would be attended with peril, whatever 
losses and inconveniences it might occasion. One 
would imagine, from the alarm which is expressed 
at the idea of setting them loose, that they are now 
chained, or shut up in strong cages, but the timid 
may be assured that such is not the fact. The 
negro is not a wild beast, but a man, of a singularly 
docile species, with a better memory of benefits than 
of injuries, grateful rather than revengeful, and 
easily governed, whether as a free laborer, or as a 
slave. The abolition of slavery in the United States 
is impracticable, not because it would be dangerous, 
but because the institution of slavery involves such 
vast pecuniary interests, that it will not be given 
up, but will fall only with the profits which sustain 
it. When that day comes, the negro will not only 
be found to be not dangerous, but he will gradually 
disappear, unless, in the mean time, the white race 
in contact with him shall have been debauched, de- 
moralized, and degraded, even below his level, by 
the continuance of the system of slavery. It is only 
on the supposition, but which is unfortunately one 



245 

which cannot be excluded from the category of the 
possibilities, of the depravation of the white race, 
and of the loss of its natural superiority, that it will 
run the risk of being expelled by the negro. 

If we consider the length of time which has 
elapsed since the Bevolution, and how little has 
been done to fulfil the promises then made, and to 
realize the expectations then cherished, of the abo- 
lition of slavery, the prospect for the future would 
not seem to be encouraging. The virtue and sa- 
gacity of the country have not been sufficiently ex- 
erted, even to confine the mischief to its ancient 
limits ; and that it has not spread over a greater 
space than it now occupies, is not so much attribu- 
table to political opposition, as to the physical im- 
possibility of multiplying negroes beyond a certain 
rate. The good fortune of events, however, may 
more than counterbalance the folly of mankind. 
We may be nearer to the desired consummation, 
although it has seemed to recede. The free popula- 
tion, which will overthrow slavery, by taking its 
place, did not exist when Washington and Jefferson 
struggled for abolition, and even believed it to be 
immediately attainable. We may console ourselves 
with the reflection, that if the evil has been suffered 
to grow, the power to which it is destined to suc- 
cumb, has grown with still greater vigor and rapidity. 

Washington and Jefferson were abolitionists. 
Washington died one, but Jefferson lived long 
enough to see that the accomplishment of any 
scheme of abolition was impracticable. Washing- 
ton and (in the early part of his life) Jefferson, like 
the abolitionists of modern times, overlooked the 



246 

facts, that in slaveholding States all social and 
political power is wielded by the slaveholders, and 
that, so long as slaveholding is in itself profitable, 
however injurious to other interests, and even to 
other interests of their own, they will not give it up. 
Washington and Jefferson, like the abolitionists of 
modern times, were so profoundly impressed with 
the evils of slavery, and so offended by its injustice, 
that they were unable to conceive of its indefinite 
permanency as a system. The experience of the 
last sixty years enables us to judge more wisely. 
The absolute impossibility of any general abolition 
of slavery in the Southern States during the present 
generation is so manifest, that practical men will 
address themselves to other methods of opposing 
the evil. Happily, it does not follow that slavery, 
because it cannot be abolished, cannot be checked, 
and perhaps extinguished. If we cannot grapple 
with it in one way, we may in other ways. "We can 
prevent its extension, and that being accomplished, 
we can advance upon it with the accumulating 
power of free labor. This may perhaps be done, 
sooner or later, by the mere operation of the laws 
of population, but sooner, and more certainly, by 
vigilant and well-directed effort. 

If it is probably true that the power chiefly to 
be relied upon for the removal of slavery from the 
border slave States, is immigration from the free 
States; the moment when such immigration is 
likely to set in with vigor, will be the opportune 
one for commencing an agitation for freedom in 
such States. Of this happy selection of the right 
time for the right thing, we have an example in 



247 

Missouri. In Kentucky, we have had the contrary 
example of heroic moral and physical bravery, ex- 
pended in vain against the prejudices of a slave- 
holding community. It may even he doubtful, if 
there is not a positive loss, in moving in advance 
of free immigration, by embittering the passions of 
opponents, and rendering them still less accessible 
to persuasion. 



CHAPTER XVn. 

The Union of the States is only endangered by that discontent of the 
slave States, which results from the impoverishing effects of 
slavery. Slavery itself, and not the agitation of it, originates the 
feeling of disunion. Nullification first aimed against tariffs. The 
mischief will be abated, as the area of slavery is diminished. 
Political quietude the ordinary result of slavery. 

The question of slavery in the United States has 
become so habitually connected with the question 
of the continued Union of the States, that it is 
necessary to consider what the precise nature of 
that connection really is, and in what way the per- 
manency of the Union will be affected by the prob- 
able course of events in respect to that institution. 

It will be found, that so far as feelings of aliena- 
tion from the Union have existed, and now exist, 
and so far as dangers actually menace it, they owe 
their origin, not to the discussion of slavery at the 
North, but to the effects of slavery upon the South ; 
and that they will be terminated, not by the cessa- 
tion of discussion, but by that extinction of slavery 



248 

iu the border slave States which may be hoped for 
at a period now not remote. 

While no unnecessary or exaggerated importance 
should be given to menaces, positive or contingent, 
of overthrowing the existing Union, the persistency 
with which they are made, and the high sources 
from which they proceed, render it necessary to 
consider by what dangers, and from what quarters, 
the stability of the Confederacy is really imperilled. 
The political institutions under which we live, 
enduring as they have proved, strong as they are 
this day, and lasting as we wish them to be, were 
the work of human hands, and must at length share 
the fate of all human things. Let us examine the 
foundations and the great timbers of our political 
edifice, and see if, happily, we may not strengthen 
what is weak, and repair breaches before they shall 
have enlarged beyond the reach of help. If there 
is danger, let us look it in the face, take the gauge 
and measure of it, and avert it, if we can, by wise 
and timely precaution. 

It is difficult to conceive of a condition of things 
which should induce the interior States to sever the 
political connection which gives them unobstructed 
access to the Atlantic Ocean and to the Gulf of 
Mexico. It is scarcely less difficult to conceive of a 
condition of things which should induce the com- 
mercial and manufacturing States upon the sea- 
board, to desire a separation from their Southern 
and Western customers. Certainly, the city of Xew 
York does not meditate the overthrow of the Union, 
upon whose commerce her greatness depends, nor 
does New England wish to be disconnected from any 



249 

of the States which she supplies with her wares and 
manufactures. In no part of the free States, from 
Maine to Iowa, do we discover any serious discon- 
tents with existing political arrangements. 

It is true, that throughout the free States a small 
class of persons is to found, who, with William 
Lloyd Garrison, denounce any political union with 
slaveholders as morally wrong. But the number of 
such persons, after a quarter of a century of eiFort 
and agitation, is not increasing, and still remains 
altogether inconsiderable. Great as the evil of 
slavery is perceived to be, it is quite apparent that 
a dissolution of the Union is no remedy for it ; and 
such is at this day the settled and unshaken convic- 
tion of the North. 

If the Union is really menaced, the danger is at 
the South. It is there, and there only, that serious 
threats of dissolution are made; it is there, and 
there only, that feelings of alienation and hostility 
are fostered and encouraged and openly avowed. 

This state of things at the South manifested itself 
iive-and-twenty years ago, in the attempted nullifi- 
cation of South Carolina, and was altogether discon- 
nected with, and independent of, the agitation of 
the slavery question. The immediate moving cause 
of the attempt at disunion at that period, was the 
disappointed personal ambition of Mr. Calhoun. 
Such, at any rate, was the contemporaneous judg- 
ment of the country, and that judgment still remains 
unreversed. The agitators of that day availed them- 
selves, as a matter of course, of every possible 
appeal to the interests and passions of men. Among 
other things, in the State of South Carolina itself, 



250 

they excited hopes that the city of Charleston, as 
the commercial emporium of a Southern Confede- 
racy, might revive and even surpass its ancient 
importance. 

At the epoch of nullification, Mr. Calhoun, 
although dominant in South Carolina only, had 
partisans and sympathizers in all the slave States. 

The real cause of this Southern predisposition 
("Southern susceptibility" as Mr. Madison called it) 
to listen to the appeals of the Palmetto nullifiers, 
was Southern discontent at the prosperity of the 
ISTorth. Virginia and the Carolinas, with exhausted 
soils, stationary populations, and decaying towns, 
saw with regret and uneasiness and alarm that the 
free States, with inferior natural advantages, were 
rapidly surpassing them in numbers and wealth. 
With jaundiced eyes, they beheld the vigorous com- 
merce, the thriving manufactures, and the opulent 
cities, of the North. Refusing to see the true cause 
of their own misfortunes, and eager to attribute 
them to every cause but the right one, they insisted 
that they alone were the producers of real wealth, 
and that the ISTorth was thriving at their expense. 
This was the doctrine of the nullifiers of 1832, and 
it has been steadily insisted upon down to the 
present time. It is the standard, orthodox doctrine 
of Southern political literature, and has produced a 
marked impression upon the public mind of the 
South. It has, without doubt, become the settled 
conviction of large numbers of persons in the slave 
States, that in some way or other, either through 
the fiscal regulations of the Government, or the 
legerdemain of trade, the North has been built up 



251 

at the expense of the South. That Massachusetts, 
which is said to have no natural productions save 
granite and ice, should grow rich, while Virginia, 
with every abounding advantage of soil, climate, 
waterfalls, forests, mines, and fisheries, with an 
unrivalled seaport, and on the best line of commu- 
nication between the Atlantic and the Valley of the 
Mississippi, should grow poor, is imputable only, 
according to their theories, to Yankee craft and 
Yankee rapacity. Without the products of the 
South, where would Northern ships find freights? 
Without Southern customers, where could Northern 
manufacturers find markets? Such questions, and 
the ideas which prompt such questions, are common 
in all the slave States. It is always agreeable to 
impute one's misfortunes to others, rather than to 
one's self; and this natural prompting of self-love has 
been stimulated, in the case of the South, by evil 
counsellors. 

Mr. Forsyth, of Alabama, on the occasion of his 
appointment, a year ago, as Minister to Mexico, by 
General Pierce, used the following language in a 
public address : 

"I have no more doubt that the effect of separa- 
' tion would be to transfer the energies of industry, 
1 population, commerce, and wealth, from the North 
' to the South, than I have that it is to the Union 
' with us, the wealth-producing States, that the 
' North owes its great progress in material prosper- 
t ^.^ * * * rp^ e -jjnion broken, we should have 
' what has been so long the dream of the South — 
' direct trade and commercial independence. Then, 
' our Southern cities, that have so long languished 
< in the shade, while the grand emporia of the North 
' have fattened upon favoring navigation laws, par- 



252 

' tial legislation by Congress, and the monopoly of 
' the public expenditure, will spring into life and 
' energy, and become the entrepots of a great 
*■ commerce." 

These views of Mr. Forsyth, which are those of 
the whole school of Southern nullifiers, have been 
promulgated, during the fourth part of a century, 
with unwearied assiduity, and in many instances, 
doubtless, as the results of sincere convictions. 

It is a common mistake, but one easily corrected 
by a little attention to facts, and especially to dates, 
that the agitation of the slavery question is the cause 
of the disunion feeling, greater or less, which exists 
at the South. The truth clearly is, that the South 
Carolina nullifiers, and their sympathizers in the 
other slave States, endeavored to break up the 
Union, long before any special slavery agitation 
commenced; and they themselves have been chiefly 
instrumental in getting up the slavery agitations of 
these latter days, in aid of their predetermined pur- 
pose of a separate Southern Confederacy. The hos- 
tility of South Carolina to the Union was as fierce 
in 1832 as it is now. Mr. Forsyth's reasons for dis- 
solving the Union would be just as good, without 
the present dispute about Kansas, as they are now. 
The slavery question is made use of to fan the pas- 
sions of the Southern public, by men who, for con- 
siderations altogether independent of slavery, wish 
to bring about a dissolution of the Union. It is 
quite notorious that it is not the slaveholding class 
at the South which particularly favors nullification. 
Those who own slaves largely, are instinctively 
cautious, conservative, and averse to political exper- 



253 

iments. The milliners themselves admit, that the 
slaveholders, as a body, will be likely to oppose 
their designs. It is not Governor Aiken, with seven 
hundred negroes upon Jehossee Island, and fabulous 
numbers elsewhere, or men like him, who will be- 
come disturbers of the public peace. 

South Carolina nullification culminated in 1832. 
Attention was not directed to the abolitionists until 
1835, and then, not because they were more active 
than before, but because a new pretext was needed 
for disunion. No practical question bearing upon 
slavery appeared in national politics until 1844, the 
epoch of Texas annexation, but Southern commer- 
cial conventions assembled every year, to fan sec- 
tional prejudices, to prosecute sectional objects, and 
to propose the overthrow of the Union. 

The efforts of these men, so long and so pertina- 
ciously continued, have produced effects which de- 
serve attention. They have embittered a large por- 
tion of the South against the North. In many of 
the slave States, they have seriously weakened the 
sentiment of national patriotism. The party of nul- 
lification comprises both talent and numbers ; it has 
demonstrated its vitality by the length of time 
during which it has maintained its existence; and 
it has now assumed proportions which make it the 
dictate of prudence to observe the course of events, 
and to take measures of precaution. 

The origin of the whole difficulty is found in sla- 
very, in its impoverishing effects, in the discontented 
humors to which it predisposes, and in its tendency 
at once to band together those connected with it, 
and to isolate them from others. The only com- 



254 

plete remedy for the difficulty is the extinction of 
slavery, but a remedy much short of this may be 
sufficient to restore to the Republic a tolerable 
measure of tranquillity. 

When slavery shall have been pushed towards the 
Gulf of Mexico, even only one tier of States, its belt 
upon the Gulf will be so narrow, and that belt will 
be so hopelessly cut in two by the Mississippi river, 
that the disruption of the present Confederacy will 
be impossible. The advance of free institutions, if 
even so little as one single ti^r of States, becomes 
vital in its effect upon political possibilities, by 
securing the control of the Mississippi river, and by 
reducing the slave States east of it to proportions 
too small for an independent existence. It was this 
view which gave so overwhelming an importance to 
the Kansas controversy. The question of Kansas 
was admitted to be the question of Missouri ; it was 
not admitted to be, but really was, the question of 
the Mississippi river. The triumph of freedom in 
Kansas secures directly freedom in Missouri, and 
will bring us back before long to the original 
adjustment of 1804, which fixed the thirty- third 
parallel of latitude as the northern limit of slavery 
in the Louisiana purchase. The political unity of 
the valley of the Mississippi river will then be 
assured, and free institutions must dominate, polit- 
ically and commercially, over its whole lower 
course. The great city at its mouth is united by 
indissoluble ties of interest to the people who dwell 
on its upper waters, and the Mississippi becomes for 
the Union a band of iron which no violence can 
break. A geographical fact is not only a fixed fact, 






255 

but it is easily comprehended, because it addresses 
itself to the eye. 

The conquest of the first line of slave States 
uncovers the second line, and ^Torth Carolina, Ten- 
nessee, and Arkansas, will then be dissuaded from 
disunion by the same apprehended jeopardy of their 
slave property which now operates upon Virginia 
and Kentucky. The situation of a border slave 
State is one of uneasiness, even in quiet times, and 
would be intolerable, if the Union was broken up. 

If the course of events in the immediate future be 
such as may reasonably be anticipated, no separate 
Southern Confederacy could possibly embrace more 
than a few States in the southeast corner of the ex- 
isting Union ; and the scheme of such a Confederacy 
would be put down by the good sense of the people 
in that quarter, if, indeed, their patriotism would 
allow it to be even entertained. 

In dealing with a question of disunion, no error 
can be so egregious as to adopt measures advised 
by those who are themselves disunionists. The 
men who threatened to destroy the Union unless 
slavery could be planted in Kansas, were precisely 
those who wished to plant slavery there for the pur- 
pose of destroying the Union, and who are baffled 
and crushed by the actual issue of events. The 
ultra pro-slavery interest in Missouri is avowedly a 
nullifying and disunion interest, as the legislative 
records of that State attest. It is not by furnishing 
such men the weapons they seek, but by disarming 
them, that they can be rendered harmless. It is not 
by permitting slavery to advance, but by compelling 
it to recede, that the Union can be saved, because, 



256 

although disunion is not synonymous with slavery, 
it grows out of slavery and draws all its vitality 
from slavery. It is not by maintaining the disease 
which afflicts it, that the body politic can he restored 
to soundness, hut by confronting it with manly firm- 
ness, and, if need be, with the caustic and with the 
knife. 

Every measure which strengthens slavery, weak- 
ens the Union; and those who are devising the 
extension of slavery, do not, in most cases, affect to 
deny that their ultimate and cherished purpose is to 
overthrow the existing Government of these States. 
Our present Minister to Mexico, Mr. Forsyth, as 
we have seen, openly urges it; and it will be with 
the view of rendering a dissolution of the Union 
more practicable, that he will endeavor to make for 
slavery new acquisitions west of Texas. The same 
view is, with many, the stimulating motive to the 
acquisition of Cuba. "What is aimed at, is such a 
degree of strength for a separate confederation of 
the slave States, as would make such a scheme fea- 
sible, or, at least, plausible. The question for the 
country is, whether a line of public policy can be 
sound, which will invite any section into new politi- 
cal combinations, or diminish the difficulties and 
hazards which now restrain it from such combina- 
tions. That species of attachment to the Union, 
which is founded in education, habit, and sentiment, 
is an important auxiliary in upholding it; but its 
main reliance, after all, is upon the substantial in- 
terests of the parties to it. AVhatever makes it 
more easy for a portion of them to break it up, 
exposes it to greater chances of overthrow, from 



257 

the ambition, discontents, and heats of men. The 
Union may have strength enough to defy all attacks, 
but a reasonable prudence dictates that its enemies 
should be watched. 

Political quiescence is the normal condition of 
communities which hold negro slaves, and the next 
generation will see things in that phase. Of all her 
vast American empire, Spain retained against the 
spirit of revolution only her West India possessions; 
and this, because the planters of Cuba feared a con- 
test in presence of their slaves. It is slaveholding 
Brazil, whose allegiance to the royal family of Por- 
tugal has never been shaken. If it should be said 
that the owners of negroes submit as easily to polit- 
ical rule as negroes do to personal rule, the remark 
would be borne out, where the proportion of slaves 
is large, by the philosophy of the case and the expe- 
rience of mankind. In our own Revolution, where 
negroes most abounded, the number was most nu- 
merous of those who deplored and discountenanced 
that struggle. And in more modern times, it has 
not been the slaveholding, but the non-slaveholding 
colonies of the British Crown, which have displayed 
a spirit of resistance to imperial edicts. South Car- 
olina succumbed to a proclamation in 1832. All 
experience and all philosophy will be at fault, if it 
does not prove to be true, that the concentration of 
the slave population in the Gulf States, if it is 
suffered to go on, will bring us, with whatever 
evil it may be attended, at least the good of politi- 
cal quiet in a region which has long vexed us with 
its clamors. 

11* 



258 



CHAPTER XYI1I. 

The population of Cuba. Actual number of slaves ; misrepresenta- 
tions corrected. Tendency of slavery in Cuba to disappear by 
increase of whites, the mortality of the slaves, and emancipation 
under Spanish laws. Classification of agricultural pursuits. 
Character and increase of the Monteros, or yeomanry. Example 
of Porto Rico. Climate of Cuba. Salubrity. Adaptation to 
white labor. Possible changes in the methods of the sugar cul- 
ture. Resources and desirability of the island. If annexed to the 
Union, the free laborers of the United States will assert their right 
to Cuba. 

As slavery in the United States derives its chief 
vigor, and all its political virulence, from the system 
of opening new markets for slaves, no discussion of 
its future prospects would he complete, which did 
not consider the probability of its expansion on the 
side of the West Indies. It is there that its ad- 
herents look for the most immediate and decisive 
successes. Cuba contains one-half of the entire 
area of all the West India islands, and would com- 
mand them all, aside from the political connection 
of some of them with European powers. Those 
connections may terminate with time and events. 
But without looking to its probable influence over 
a remote future, or even to its immediate influence 
over the adjoining island of Hayti, Cuba is in itself 
so magnificent a possession, and presents fields for 
industry so incalculably vast, that the owners of 
slave labor in this country make no exaggerated cal- 
culations, in believing that its appropriation to their 
use and for their benefit, would maintain indefinitely 
the value of their peculiar property, consolidate their 
political power at home so long as the Union of 






259 

these States shall subsist, and render possible for 
them an independent national existence, based upon 
the control of commercial staples. 

If the acquisition of Cuba can be effected by the 
utmost efforts of the Government of this country, 
and at whatever cost of money, it may be regarded 
as a foregone conclusion, so long as the Government 
remains in the hands of those who now administer 
it. If the acquisition is not made, it will be pre- 
vented by the national obstinacy of Spain, or by 
obstacles interposed by the diplomacy of other Eu- 
ropean powers. The measure has been resolved 
upon by those who control the destinies of this 
country, and the only present practical questions 
which remain for us, relate to the consequences 
which may be expected to flow from it. It is only 
pertinent to the scope of the present discussion, 
however, to inquire if one of these consequences 
will be such an appropriation of Cuba to the uses of 
the slaveholders, as they anticipate from its acquisi- 
tion by the United States. 

Since the changes introduced into the internal 
administration of Cuba in 1808, very full and fre- 
quent publications have been officially made of the 
population and other statistics of that island. Of 
population, the returns are as follows : 

Whites. Free blacks. Slaves. Total. 

1811 - - - 274,000 114,000 212,000 600,000 

1817 - - - 290,021 115,691 225,268 630,980 

1827 - - - 311,051 106,494 286,942 704,487 

1841 - - - 418,291 152,838 436,495 1,007,624 

1846 - - - 425,769 149,226 323,759 898,752 

1849 - - - 457,133 164,410 323,897 945,440 

1853 - - - 501,988 176,647 330,425 1,008,060 



260 

The whites must now number not far from 
550,000. 

An enumeration in 1775 gave 95,419 whites, 
40,615 free blaeks, and 44,336 slaves, making a 
total of 170,375. An enumeration in 1791 gave a 
total of 272,140. These two enumerations, how- 
ever, are known to have been inaccurate, and to 
contain important omissions. Thus, Humboldt, 
who was in Cuba in 1804, from an examination of 
official registers in many districts, and other sources 
of information, arrived at the conclusion, that the 
total population in 1791 could not have been less 
than 362,700. 

The first thins: which will attract attention in the 
table given above, is the small increase of the whites, 
and the actual diminution of both free blacks and 
slaves, between 1841 and 1846. 

As to the whites, the explanation is, that the gar- 
risons, crews of vessels, and transient persons, which 
had been included in the census of 1841, and before 
that, have been since omitted. The numbers em- 
braced in these descriptions amounted, in 1817, to 
32,641; in 1849, to 54,560; and in 1853, to 40,940. 
Their omission makes a large apparent diminution 
in the population of Havana, between 1841 and 1846. 

As to the colored races, it is to be observed, that 
Don Geronimo Valdez, appointed Captain General 
in 1841, and removed in 1843, exerted himself reso- 
lutely and in good faith, and with some success, to 
suppress the slave trade, and that he granted letters 
of emancipation to many negroes illegally held in 
servitude, stated by some authorities as high as three 
thousands. It is to be observed, also, that during 



261 

the years 1842 and 1843 there were slave insurrec- 
tions upon many estates, the suppression of which 
was attended with great loss of life. These insur- 
rections, which were in fact isolated and discon- 
nected, are now sometimes spoken of as "the mulatto 
insurrection," under the belief that they had been 
systematically instigated by the mulattoes. So 
alarming were these insurrections, that the Govern- 
ment of the island convened a meeting of the plant- 
ers at Matanzas, in December, 1843, to consider the 
measures proper to be adopted. This meeting ad- 
vised, as the best remedy, the absolute suppression 
of the slave trade; but this recommendation did not 
suit General O'Donnell, who had succeeded Yaldez 
as Captain General. The remedy to which he re- 
sorted was the institution of military commissions, 
who perambulated the island, and executed large 
numbers of blacks, free and slave. Some of the 
barbarities of these commissions will be found de- 
tailed in the appendix to the Notes of a Physician 
upon Cuba, published in 1844. The operation 
seems to have begun in cruelty, and ended in ve- 
nality ; the free blacks saving their own lives, and' 
planters saving the lives of their slaves, only by pay- 
ing ransom money to the butchers appointed by 
O'Donnell. The number which perished at the 
hands of the executioner is not known. 

In reference to the importation of slaves into 
Cuba, the statements are contradictory, being to a 
considerable extent conjectural, inasmuch as the 
whole trade has been, for many years, an illicit one, 
and contrary to the treaties between Great Britain 
and Spain. 



262 

From 1822 to 1828, both years inclusive, the 
British commissions report the whole known im- 
portations at 27,000, to which they add a presumed 
importation, not known, of one-half, or 13,500, 
making an annual average of importation of 5,786. 

From 1829 to 1837, the British consul at Havana 
reported the following importations, five-sixths being 
ascertained, and one-sixth estimated : 



1829 - 

1830 - 

1831 - 

1832 - 

1833 - 


- 10,320 

- 11,500 

- 12,480 

- 9,940 

- 10,800 


1834 - 

1835 - 

1836 - 

1837 - 

Total 


- 13,680 

- 17,560 

- 17,040 

- 18,240 


- 121,920 



In Mr. Thrasher's edition of Humboldt's Cuba, 
published in 1856, the following figures of importa- 
tion are given : 



1838 - 


- 10,495 


1847 


- 


- 1,450 


1839 - 


- 10,995 


1848 


- 


- 1,500 


1840 - 


- 10,104 


1849 


- 


- 8,700 


1841 - 


- 8,893 


1850 


- 


- 3,500 


1842 - 


- 3,630 


1851 


- 


- 5,000 


1843 - 


- 8,000 


1852 


- 


- 7,924 


1844 - 


• - 10,000 


1853 


- 


- 12,500 


1845 • 


■ - 1,300 


1854 


- 


- 10,230 


1846 


- - 419 








Total 


- 114,640 



It is stated by Mr. Thrasher that these figures are 
copied "from the annual reports of the Havana com- 
i missions to the British Government, and represent the 
' maximum of slave importations in Cuba." 



263 

The smallness of the importation in 1842, as 
compared with the years preceding and the two 
years following, is to be ascribed to the repressive 
efforts of Captain General Valdez, who was not in 
office two full years. 

The very small importations commencing in 1845 
are attributable, not to legal repression, but to a fall 
in the price of sugar and molasses, to the production 
of which the slave labor of the island is largely 
devoted, and to the rapid abandonment of the culti- 
vation of coffee. In the Notes of a Physician, (1844,) 
it is noticed that the year preceding the publication 
of the work had been one of unparalleled agricul- 
tural depression, that the price of molasses had 
compelled some of the planters to throw it away, 
and that many of the lower classes of white laborers 
had been thrown out of employment. In a book 
entitled " Cuba and the Cubans" published in 1850, 
and ascribed to Mr. R. M. Kimball, it is stated that 
this commercial depression still continued, and that 
real estate was declining. u An estate" says Mr. 
Kimball, "which eight years ago might be sold for 
$100,000, would not at this dag command $25,000." 
At the present time, the high prices of sugar stimu- 
late a great degree of activity in the slave trade. 
A fall in 'the price of sugar would again reduce it 
to the standard of 1845, 1846, 184T, and 1848. 

Considering that the slave population as it existed 
in 1841, after a period of great activity in the slave 
trade, was composed largely of newly-imported 
negroes, among whom mortality is the greatest; 
considering that the trade was greatly reduced in 
1842, was still smaller in 1845, and was merely 



264 

nominal in 1846 ; considering the compulsory eman- 
cipations by Captain General Valdez, the numerous 
and bloody insurrections of 1842 and 1843, and the 
frightful executions under the authority of General 
O'Donnell's military commissions; it will not seem 
surprising that the number of slaves diminished 
sensibly between 1841 and 1846, although the dimi- 
nution actually reported appears large. 

If the point still seems to require explanation, it 
is found in the high probability that the number of 
slaves reported in 1841 is beyond the truth. It is, 
in fact, incredible, if the figures of the slave trade 
are correct. In all the West India islands, where 
the slave trade has existed, the slave population has 
diminished rapidly, so far as natural increase is 
concerned, and the amount of increase obtained has 
always fallen much short of the importations. Thus 
in Cuba the census returns show an increase of 
13,300 slaves between 1811 and 1817, whereas, in 
the same period, the custom-house returns show an 
importation, according to Humboldt, of 67,700. 
From 1817 to 1827, copying Humboldt's figures 
down to 1825, and taking the figures of the British 
commission afterwards, there was an importation 
of 128,100, whereas the increase by the census was 
only 61,674. Between 1827 and 1841, excluding 
1827, but including 1841, the importations are stated 
at 172,887, whereas the increase by the census was 
149,553. This would leave the annual loss, inde- 
pendent of the slave trade, as follows : 

Annual loss. 

Between 1811 and 1817 - 9,066 

1817 " 1827 6,642 

1827 " 1841 1,662 



265 

No instance can be found of a rate of annual loss 
so small as this last, in a slave population in tropical 
regions fed by the slave trade, and it may be pro- 
nounced impossible. Even since 1846, although 
more attention is now paid to the raising of slaves, 
the annual loss to 1853 will be found to be 4,849, 
the importations in that period having been 40,590, 
while the gain by the census was only 6,528. 

Upon the whole, if the discrepancy between the 
number of slaves reported in 1841 and 1846 be 
regarded as not sufficiently explained by the known 
causes of decrease within that period, and if errors 
are to be assumed ; it will appear more probable that 
the number given in 1841 is too high, than that the 
number given in 1846 is too low, and especially as 
this last" number is confirmed by the enumerations 
of 1849 and 1853. 

These observations have been made upon the 
table of population, not only because the distribu- 
tion of the classes of population is the primary 
element of any sound judgment as to the future 
destiny of Cuba, but because great and pertinacious 
efforts have been made to mislead the people of the 
United States in reference to it 

These efforts are prompted by the desire to create 
the belief that slavery is a much more important 
part of the industrial system of Cuba than it really 
is; to conceal the fact that slavery there is really 
tottering and precarious; to mask the movements 
which are meditated to prop it up ; and to discourage 
any counter attempt to introduce a better system. 

The single fact relied upon, to prove that the 
present slave population of Cuba is greater than the 

12 



266 

census shows it to be, is the great increase in the 
production of sugar, which was 440,000 boxes in 
1825, when Humboldt published his work upon 
Cuba, and is now 1,500,000 boxes. In only one 
other agricultural cultivation, that of coffee, are 
slaves much employed; and in this cultivation, the 
falling off has been nearly as great as the increase 
in the sugar cultivation. 

Sugar plays a leading part in the foreign com- 
merce of Cuba, constituting more than two-thirds 
of its exports; but its production employs but an 
insignificant part of its population. On the system 
and methods practiced in 1825, a plantation with 
300 negroes, not working negroes, but old and 
young, and of both sexes, would produce 2,000 
boxes; so that Humboldt computed 66,000 negroes, 
or about one-fourth of the slave population at that 
time, as engaged in producing 440,000 boxes. At 
this rate, the present production would require 
225,000 negroes ; but, in fact, the same quantity is 
produced with -half the force required thirty years 
ago. 

In a work printed for private circulation in 1855, 
quoted by Mr. Thrasher as the production of a gen- 
tleman distinguished for "his ability as a sugar planter 
and economist" the statistics are given of "a plantation 
producing 4,000 boxes, which is neither one of the colossal 
ones recently made, nor one of those deemed small." For 
such a plantation, "300 negroes of both sexes and vari- 
ous ages" are required. "With the same force, the 
product has doubled since 1825, the saving being 
accounted for by " the improved division of labor, the 
6 use of steam power, the introduction of mechanical 



267 

1 appliances, as railways from the boiling house to the 
1 purging house, pumps for several purposes and water 
1 pipes, improved furnaces and clarifiers, cane-carriers, 
' bagass-carts, §c, and the greater facilities of transition 
' to market" 

This computation would give 112,500 negroes as 
required for the production of 1,500,000 hoxes. 
This sufficiently approximates to the statement of 
the " Guadro Estadico" of 1846, that the population 
of the sugar plantations amounted then to 130,816, 
which implies, after deducting ten per cent, for 
whites, as estimated by Mr. Thrasher, a negro force 
of 116,735. The increase of production, since 1846, 
may be attributed to improvements, without the 
necessity of supposing an increase of force. 

In 1825, Humboldt reckoned 28,000 slaves as en- 
gaged in producing 305,000 quintals of coffee. For 
the seven years ending 1852, the production averaged 
annually only 190,000 quintals, so that, in addition 
to any reduction from improved processes, the num- 
ber of slaves in this employment must have been 
reduced from 28,000 to 17,442. 

As to tobacco, it was when Humboldt wrote, and 
is now, " cultivated almost entirely by whites and free 
blacks." 

In the, elaborate official agricultural returns for 
1830, 138,982 slaves engaged in agriculture are val- 
ued at $300 each, u the others being old, or supposed of 
little or no value," divided, as to the cultivations they 
were engaged in, as follows : 

In sugar and coffee estates - - 100,000 
In smaller cultivation - - - - 31,055 
In tobacco 7,927 



268 

Of the 286,942 slaves in 1827, 65,754 were re- 
ported in the census as living in cities and towns. 
Following the same proportion, if 301,223 be 
assumed as the number of slaves in 1830, the rural 
portion, including the very old, or very young, and 
all others " supposed of little or no value," must have 
been 232,037, although the number valued was only 
138,982. 

Following still the same proportion, the slave 
population of 330,425, reported in the census of 
1853, would give for agricultural labors 254,511. 
According to the uniform accounts we receive, and 
the extraordinary pressure there is for labor upon 
sugar estates, there cannot be so large a proportion 
of agricultural slave labor employed in "smaller 
cultivation" and "tobacco" as there was in 1830. But 
admitting that there is, there would still be left for 
the sugar and coffee estates, nearly all of it being 
now devoted to sugar, a slave force of 183,126, 
which is more than enough, upon any principles of 
computation, to account for all the results achieved. 

The proportion of slaves, however, employed in 
agriculture, has increased since 1827. The current 
information from Cuba is, that "the in-door slaves 
have been sent to the fields," which is precisely what 
might be expected from the high prices of sugar. 
If the total number of slaves is now 330,425, the 
classification of pursuits may safely be presumed 
to have so changed from what it was in 1827, that, 
instead of 183,126 slaves employed in the cultiva- 
tion of sugar and coffee, 200,000 are employed in 
the cultivation of sugar alone ; and this force ought 
to give nearly double the quantity actually produced. 



269 

It is so far from being true that there is anything 
in existing agricultural facts in Cuba, or in any 
accounts we receive from it, to induce us to be- 
lieve that the number of slaves is greater than is 
reported in the last census, that it seems difficult to 
believe that the actual number is so great. Cer- 
tainly, not half the number can be required for all 
the sugar which is produced, and yet not only does 
that cultivation seem to be attracting to itself all 
the slave labor which can be spared from other 
pursuits, but thousands of Coolies and Yucatan 
Indians are pressed into the service. The sugar 
planters are making profits which enable them to 
buy all the purchasable labor, and, in addition to 
that, they hire slaves largely during the grinding 
season. If it is thus difficult to see where the 
330,425 slaves reported in the last census are em- 
ployed, how utterly incredible is the number of 
662,599 assumed for 1855 by Mr. Thrasher. 

A possible explanation of the apparently exces- 
sive number of slaves in the census, is the fact that 
it includes those who are partially emancipated, 
under the system peculiar to Spanish law, which 
permits slaves to purchase themselves by instal- 
ments. Mr. Thrasher states, that many negroes 
choose to leave a small instalment unpaid, and are 
thus classed nominally as slaves, when they are not 
such in fact. 

But, after all, the balance of probabilities is, that 
the census exaggerates the number of slaves. The 
capitation tax upon slaves being confined to house 
servants, there is no motive to diminish the re- 
ported number of agricultural slaves. Inducements 



270 

to exaggerate them, may be found in the vanity of 
the planters, in their desire to enlarge the basis of 
their pecuniary credit, or in a policy of magnifying 
the actual importance of slave industry, and the 
consequent difficulty of dispensing with it. 

All statements based, or affected to be based, 
upon registers of christenings and interments, which 
show any natural increase of the blacks of Cuba, arc 
deceptive, either by mistake or fraud. It is contra- 
dicted by the uniform history of all the West India 
islands during the continuance of the slave trade; 
it is contradicted by the history of the British 
islands, even after the abolition of the trade, 
although the equality of the sexes was soon restored 
there, as in Cuba it never has been; it is contra- 
dicted by the history of Cuba itself, wherever we 
keep within the domain of authentic facts; and it is 
contradicted to the eye of every visiter to the island. 
The negro from Africa, unmistakably marked, is 
seen everywhere, not only upon the plantations, but 
upon the quays of the seaports, and in such numbers 
and proportions as to show everybody that slavery 
exists only by the slave trade.* It is a matter of 
notorietv, that the Cubans have resisted the propo- 



* "Africans, the living witnesses of the present existence of the 
1 slave trade, are seen everywhere ; at every step you meet blacks, 
' whose cheeks are scarred with parallel slashes with which they 
< were marked in the African market, and who cannot even speak 
; the mutilated Spanish current in the mouths of the Cuba negroes. 
' One day, I stood upon the quay at Matanzas, and saw the slaves 
1 unloading the large lighters. ' Some of these are Africans,' I said 
« to a gentleman, who resided on the island. ' They are all Afri- 
« cans,' he answered ; ' Africans to a man ; the negro born in Cuba 
« is of a lighter make.' "—Bryant's Letters, 1849. 



271 

sition to liberate the negroes brought in since 1820 
in violation of the treaty of Great Britain, on the 
ground that this would call for the liberation of 
nearly the entire mass of the negroes. The nativi- 
ties of the negroes of Cuba have never been report- 
ed, but what the proportion of the African-born 
must be, may be inferred from the fact that even in 
Porto Rico, where the slave trade scarcely exists, 
the census of 1835 returns 15,728 out of 34,336, or 
nearly one-half, as natives of Africa. - 

Slavery in Cuba has to contend, not only with 
mortality, but with emancipation, which is made 
easy by the Spanish laws of the Indies, and occurs 
constantly and frequently. It would speedily suc- 
cumb to this double drain, if the slave trade was cut 
off. All reliable observers agree in this. 

In his letters from Cuba, in 1849, "W. C. Bryant, 
whose statements are guarantied by the highest 
intelligence and character, observes : 

"The laws of Cuba permit any slave to purchase 

< his freedom on paying a price fixed by three per- 

< sons, one appointed by his master, and two by a 
6 magistrate. 

"It is manifest, that if the slave trade could be 

< checked, and these laws remain unaltered, the 

< negroes would gradually emancipate themselves; 

< all at least who would be worth keeping as ser- 

< vants. The mulattoes emancipate themselves as a 

< matter of course, and some of them become rich 
6 by the occupations they follow. The prejudice of 
* color is by no means so strong here as in the 

< United States. 

" Of course, if Cuba were to be annexed to the 

< United States, the slave trade with Africa would 

< cease to be carried on. The planters, however, 
'would doubtless adopt regulations insuring the 



272 

< perpetuity of slavery ; they would unquestionably, 
' as soon as they were allowed to frame ordinances 
6 for the island," take away the facilities which the 

< present laws give the slave for effecting his own 
' emancipation." 

The efforts to mislead the people of this country 
as to the actual classification and probable tenden- 
cies of the population of Cuba, are unwearied and 
systematic. We find, for example, in the document 
signed in 1854, by, among others, the present Presi- 
dent of the United States, familiarly known as the 
"Ostend Manifesto," the following paragraphs: 

"Does Cuba, in the possession of Spain, seriously 

< endanger our internal peace and the existence of 
'our cherished Union ? Should this question be 
1 answered in the affirmative, then by every law, 
' human and divine, we shall be justified in wrest- 
' ing it from Spain. 

"We should be recreant to duty, be unworthy of 
i our gallant forefathers, and commit base treason 

< against our posterity, should we permit Cuba to 

< be Africanized, and become a second St. Domingo." 

That an island, in which the white race has been 
gaining upon the black race for a long time steadily, 
and of late rapidly, is in no danger of being African- 
ized ; that an island, in which the white race actually 
outnumbers the black race, and of whose population 
slaves constitute only one-third, is in no danger of 
becoming a second St. Domingo; will be plain 
enough to those who are permitted to see what the 
truth is. No illustrations drawn from Jamaica, or 
from St. Domingo, with few whites in either, are 
applicable to Cuba. It is not to prevent its African- 
ization, but in order to Africanize it, and for no 
other purpose whatever, that its acquisition is de- 



273 

sired by the authors of the Ostend Manifesto, and 
those whose interests they represent. It is precisely 
because Cuba is now in danger of being un- African- 
ized, that it is sought to be placed under the control 
of a Republic in which slavery is the dominant polit- 
ical power. If it is really desired to prevent the 
Africanization of Cuba, the method is simple. Let 
Africans be kept out of it, and, if it is acquired by 
this country, let it be upon the fundamental condition 
that no negro shall be carried into it, either from 
Africa or from this country. The offer of a propo- 
sition like that, would effectually test the sincerity 
of those who affect to apprehend the Africanization 
of Cuba. 

There can be no question of the fact that slavery 
will die out in Cuba under the government of Spain, 
if only the African slave trade can be put an end to ; 
and it is not possible that that trade, terminated 
everywhere else, can be long maintained in that 
island. 

To put an end to this trade more speedily, is one 
of the reasons given for the acquisition of Cuba by 
the United States. It is very remarkable, that of 
those who give this reason, a large proportion openly 
advocate the revival of the African slave trade by 
the United States, or propose to populate Mexico 
and Central America by means of it. There is no 
single person in this country, who publicly defends 
the African slave trade, or secretly favors it, who 
does not demand the acquisition of Cuba. This 
would certainly be remarkable, if the repression of 
the slave trade in Cuba was anything but a pretext, 
as in truth it is not. 



274 

This pretext would have some color, if those who 
present it would consent that the trade in slaves 
from this country to Cuha should be prohibited 
after its acquisition. It is insulting the common 
intelligence of mankind to pretend that anything is 
gained by cutting off this traffic with Africa, merely 
to open it with the United States. Not only is 
nothing gained, but much is lost, in every respect. 
To transfer the savage negro from Dahomey to Cuba 
is far less wicked and cruel, than to make the same 
transfer of the Christian negro from Virginia. And 
the consequences are less injurious, it being clearly 
established by reason and experience, that every 
new outlet opened for the slaves of Virginia, only 
confirms slavery, and increases the number of slaves, 
in that State. 

Let us look, now, into the classification of the 
agricultural pursuits of Cuba. 

According to the agricultural returns of 1830, as 
given in McGregor's Commercial Statistics, the 
lands appropriated by individuals were divided and 
valued as follows, the caballeria being about thirty- 
two acres: 

" 32,857 caballerias, in grazing grounds, 
for large and for smaller cattle, and 
attached to Hatos and Cerrales, at 

100 dollars $3,285,700 

"10,752 in grazing grounds, attached to 
estates, with enclosures, at 1,000 
dollars ---------- 10,752,000 

" 15,300 in sugar estates, at 1,500 dollars 22,950,000 
"9,200 in coffee estates, at 1,500 dollars 13,800,000 
" 20,732 in smaller cultivation, provis- 
ions, &c, at 2,000 dollars - - - - 41,464,000 

" 2,778 in tobacco, at 700 dollars - - 1,944,600" 



275 

The returns of 1846 are given by Mr. Thrasher as 
follows : 

"Number of sugar plantations, 1,442. Coffee 
* plantations, 1,670. Potreros, 8,691. Haciendas, 
< 1,239. Tobacco plantations, 9,102. To these, we 
i may add the following number of farms, called 
' Sitios de labor: In the Western Department, 12,286 ; 
6 Central, 6,678; Eastern, 6,328." 

These Haciendas, and Potreros are cattle farms. 
The first are described by Humboldt, as being often 
two or three leagues in diameter, not fenced, and 
pastured by half-wild cattle. Two or three horse- 
men suffice to take care of them. The second are 
described by the same authority, as smaller, fenced, 
and generally with some land planted in maize and 
plantain. Upon the Potreros, cattle are fattened, 
and sheep, swine, and goats, are reared. 

The " farms called Sitios de labor" in the statement 
of Mr. Thrasher, correspond to the area "in smaller 
cultivation" in the statement of McGregor. The 
"Potreros" of Mr. Thrasher are the "grazing grounds 
attached to estates, with enclosures" of McGregor. 

The proportions of classes of population, at the 
time he wrote, are stated by Humboldt, in the dis- 
tricts containing the large plantations of sugar and 
coffee, to have ranged from thirty to thirty-six per 
cent, of whites, from three to six per cent, of free 
blacks, and from fifty-eight to sixty-seven per cent, 
of slaves. In the districts of the Vuelta de Abajo, 
where tobacco is grown, the whites were sixty-two 
per cent., the free blacks twenty-four per cent., and 
the slaves fourteen per cent. In the grazing districts, 
the whites were sixty-six per cent., the free blacks 
twenty per cent., and the slaves fourteen per cent. 



276 

Since that date, 1825, important changes have 
occurred. The whites have doubled, while the 
slaves have increased about one-seventh. This in- 
crease of the whites has been mainly in the country, 
and this circumstance is important both for the 
present and the future. Among other things, it 
encourages the hope that the rate of increase of the 
white population will be kept up. A rural popula- 
tion gains faster than an urban population ; and this 
is specially true of Cuba, where the coast towns are 
least salubrious. 

This white country population of Cuba is well 
spoken of in important particulars. " You can have 
' no idea," says Mr. Kimball, "of the bold, independent 
1 manner peculiar to the country people of Cuba" 
William C. Bryant says of them in his letters, that 
"they are men of manly Inuring, of thin make, but often 
of a good figure, with well-spread shoulders." Ballou, 
in his History of Cuba, published in 1854, speaks 
of them as "a manly race of yeomanry," and gives 
the following account of their position and charac- 
teristics : 

"The Monteros, or 3'eomanry of Cuba, inhabit 
* the less-cultivated portions of the soil, venturing 

< into the cities only to sell their surplus produce, 
' acting as market-men for the cities in the immedi- 
' ate neighborhood of their houses. The Moritero 

< is rarely a slave-owner himself, but frequently is 
' engaged on the plantations during the busy season 
4 as an extra overseer. He is generally a hard task- 

< master to the slave, having an intuitive hatred for 
1 the blacks. 

"The Monteros form an exceedingly important 

< and interesting class of the population of the 
' island. They marry very young — the girls from 



277 

* thirteen to fifteen, the young men from sixteen to 
' twenty, and almost universally rearing large families. 
i Their increase during the last twenty years has been 
4 great, and they seem to be fast approaching to a 
c degree of importance that will make them, like 
' the American farmers, the bone and sinew of the 
' land. The great and glaring misfortune of their 
' present situation is, the want of intelligence and 
6 cultivation ; books they have none, nor, of course, 
' schools. It is said that, of late, efforts are being 

* made among them, to a considerable extent, to 
' afford their children opportunity for instruction. 

* Physically speaking, they are a fine yeomanry, 
' and, if they could be rendered intelligent, would 
6 in time become what nature seems to have de- 
' signed them for — the real masters of the country. 

"There is one fact highly creditable to the Mon- 
' tcros, and that is their temperate habits, as it re- 
' gards indulgence in stimulating drinks. As a 
1 beverage, they do not use ardent spirits, and seem 
' to have no taste for the article. I doubt if any 
' visiter ever saw one of this class in the least intox- 
\ icated. This being the fact, they are a very relia- 
4 ble people, and can be counted upon in an emer- 
' gency." 

In the "Notes of a Physician" it is said that "the 
' Montero eyes with jealousy the wide domains of the 
' slave-owner, aside of which his primitive hut sinks into 

< insignificance" which corresponds with the follow- 
ing account, reported by Mr. Bryant on the author- 
ity of a European long resident in the island : 

"The people of Cuba will not make any effort to 
' emancipate themselves by taking up arms. The 

< struggle with the power of Spain would be bloody 
1 and uncertain, even if the white population were 

< united; but the mutual distrust with which the planters 
6 and the peasantry regard each other, would make the 

* issue of such an enterprise still more doubtful." 



278 

It is apparent from the disproportionate increase 
of the different classes of population in Cuba, and 
from the distribution of agricultural industry, that 
its tendency is to freedom, and to a great prepon- 
derance of the white race. Cuba is, in fact, follow- 
ing the course of Porto Rico, although at some in- 
terval behind. 

The case of Porto Rico deserves notice in this 
connection, because it illustrates the same facts 
which are operating upon the destiny of Cuba; the 
adaptation of the West India climate to a white 
population ; the capacity of such a population there 
to multiply more rapidly than the blacks in any 
condition, free or slave; and the tendency of slavery 
to extinction, under the combined operation of the 
Spanish laws of emancipation, and of tropical habits 
of slave management. The case of Porto Rico pre- 
sents another fact which does not yet appear in the 
history of Cuba, but is destined to do so ; the suc- 
cessful application of white labor to the cultivation 
of sugar. 

The population of Porto Rico at several periods, 
(that for 1835 being taken from Turnbull's Cuba,) 
was as follows : 





1802. 


1812. 


1820. 


1835. 


"Whites - - 


78,281 


85,662 


102,432 


180,783 


Free mulattoes 


55,164 


63,983 


86,269 


85,555 


Free blacks - 


16,414 


15,833 


20,191 


18,489 


Slaves - - 


13,333 


17,536 


21,730 


34,336 



Total - - - 163,192 183,014 230,622 319,161 

The classifications by age, in the census of 1835, 
prove that the Porto Ricans are both prolific and 



279 

long-lived, and that Europeans will thrive, not only 
in a West India climate, but under the labors of the 
cane-field. In fact, that particular species of labor 
is avoided by the whites elsewhere in the "West 
Indies, not because it is severer than the industries 
which they actually prosecute, but because it is 
associated with the degradation of slavery. In 
Porto Rico, that sort of prejudice against it does 
not exist. 

Porto Pico has received many slaves, sent thither 
from the English and French islands by their mas- 
ters, to avoid their emancipation, and a few from 
Africa. "Without those external sources of supply, 
slavery would have become extinct long since. 

The commerce of Porto Rico is flourishing, being, 
in 1851, as follows : 

Imports $6,073,870 

Exports 5,761,975 

Duties - 1,069,418 

Porto Rico is in the latitude of Jamaica, being 
between eighteen and nineteen degrees north; 
whereas Cuba is between twenty and twenty-three 
degrees north. 

The population in 1846 is stated in Cotton's Atlas 
to have amounted to 447,914. 

The case of Porto Rico is a case in point, not only 
for those who advocate free labor, but for those who 
advocate white labor, in the warm latitudes. It 
affords an argument, not only against negro slave 
labor, but against that other scheme of introducing 
(so called) free negroes from Africa. The whole 
theory of bringing in inferior races, negroes or 
coolies, is fallacious. The advantage is temporary, 



280 

at best.* Of the coolies, the practice is to take 
males only, and perhaps that alone is practicable. 
As to the free negro, experience shows that he will 
not multiply in the presence of the white man, even 
where a due proportion of the sexes is established. 
While they are neither of them self-perpetuating, 
they both keep out the white race. 

According to authorities listened to by consider- 
able portions of the American people, morals and 
political rights are to be subordinated to tempera- 
ture, the question of slavery is to be settled by the 
thermometer, and hereafter, instead of consulting 
Archdeacon Paley and Adam Smith, we are to look 
only to Fahrenheit and Reaumur. 

In " Cuba and the Cubans" of Mr. Kimball, it is 
stated that "the hottest months do not average more than 
' eighty-four to eighty-five degrees, and the coolest present 
1 a mean temperature of about seventy degrees. Ice some- 
' times forms at night, after a long continuance of the 
\ northers, but snow never falls." Mr. Kimball gives 
the following table of the results of long-continued 
observation : 

Beg. 

"Mean temperature at Havana and northern 

part of the island, near the sea - - - - 77.00 
" At Havana, the warmest month - - - - 82.00 
" At Havana, the coldest month - - - -70.00 
"In the interior for the year, where the land 

rises from 600 to 1,050 feet above the sea 74.00 

"In the coldest month 62.30 

"For the year at Santiago de Cuba - - - 80.30 

"For the warmest month - 84.00 

"For the coldest month 64.00 

"At Havana, it is cold when at 70.00 

" The coldest day at Havana has been - -60.30 



281 

"The warmest day at Havana has been - - 92.00 
"In the interior, the thermometer many 

times has sunk to 53.00 

"And even to - 50.00" 

Humboldt, as the results of his observation, fixes 
the mean temperature of Havana and of the coast 
at seventy-eight degrees, and of the interior at 
seventy-three degrees. He adds, that, upon the 
coasts, in ordinary years, "the thermometer never rises 
i in August above eighty-six degrees, and I have known 
6 the inhabitants complain of excessive heat when it rose 

< to eighty-eight degrees. ,r 

This is a warm climate, but not marked by excess- 
ive heats. The mean temperature is that of Lower 
Egypt, which is perfectly adapted to European con- 
stitutions. Of the general salubrity of Cuba, the 
evidence is decisive. 

In the " Notes of a Physician" the following state- 
ments are made : 

"In connection with the climate, it may be well 
' to make a few remarks on the salubrity of the 
' island. In all the maritime towns, yellow fever 

< prevails from June until November, often com- 

< mencing in May. Sporadic cases occur all the 
6 year round in Havana, especially during long spells 
1 of wet and warm weather in the winter. The inte- 
4 rior of the island is as healthy as France, fevers pre- 
' vailing only along the water-courses and swamps, 
' and those chiefly intermittent. The red lands are 
4 the most healthy, sickness being there produced 
' only by the greatest exposure. 

"To invalids, suffering from affections exacerbated 

< by the cold of winter, especially to those laboring 

< under any of the forms of pulmonary disease, Cuba 
6 offers a clime far superior to any that the continent 
' of Europe possesses, not excepting even that of 

12* 



282 

' Italy. There is a blandness in its trade winds that 

* is nowhere else felt." 

Ballon says: 

"It is doubtful if Havana, even in the fever 

< season, is as unhealthy as New Orleans during the 

< same period of the year/' 

Mr. Kimball says : 

"With respect to the salubriousness of the coun- 

* try, it is usually remarkable, and particularly so 
' in the interior of the island. It is certain, that in 
' the largest towns situated near the coasts, during 
' the intense heats of the summer season, it is usual 

* for the yellow fever to make its appearance; but 
1 besides this not being, as it formerly was, a mortal 
1 disease, its attacks are almost surely avoided by 
' observing a good hygienic regimen." 

In Colton's Atlas, the following observations are 
made upon the West India climate generally: 

"Even in the warm season, the influence of the 

< surrounding ocean, the periodically-recurring sea- 

< breezes, and the height of land in the interior of 

< the islands, tend to modify the climatic intensity 
' peculiar to their geographical position. In the 
1 interior of the large islands, in which elevation is 
' most marked, a mild and delightful climate is 

< enjoyed throughout the year. The low lands, 

< however, in all these islands, are exceedingly 

< unhealthy, and endemic influences render them 

< peculiarly hostile to the European constitution." 

And of Cuba, in particular, it is observed: 

"The island is intersected longitudinally by a 

< range of mountains diminishing in height from 

< east to west. At the east end, where they are 

< diffused over nearly the entire surface, they attain 

< their greatest elevation, about 8,000 feet. From 
1 the bases of these high lands, the country opens 

< into extensive meadows, or beautiful plains and 



283 

1 savannas, with occasionally some low, swampy 
' tracts. The climate is hot and moist near the 
' coast, but in the interior cool and healthy." 

In this island, with limited exceptions so admi- 
rably healthy, the white race does at this moment 
actually constitute the majority, notwithstanding 
the vast importations of Africans ; and, so far as a 
long experience goes, the white race is the only one 
which is capable of multiplying itself, or even of 
perpetuating itself. Among the Cubans themselves, 
there was never any doubt of the adaptation of 
white labor to all their pursuits; and they have 
continually demanded white immigration. The 
planters' meeting at Matanzas, in 1843, demanded 
this, and so did a similar meeting, convened there 
in 1837, by Captain General Tacon. These are 
authentic and reliable expressions of Cuban opinion. 

The most severe labor in Cuba, that of felling 
timber, is performed exclusively by whites. The 
blacksmiths and carpenters are whites. White 
labor is exclusive, or predominant, in everything but 
the sugar culture. Free labor has been prejudiced 
against that culture, from associating it with slavery ; 
and the methods always and still practiced confine 
it to great capitalists, who alone can maintain the 
costly machinery and apparatus by which cane is 
converted into sugar. So soon as arrangements are 
made, by which small cultivators of cane can sell it 
at sugar mills, or have it converted into sugar upon 
equitable terms, the difficulty is at an end, and cane 
may be raised by independent freeholders, instead 
of by gangs of slaves. A similar change was par- 
tially introduced, years ago, in the coffee production 



284 

in Cuba, which requires expensive mills to prepare 
the rough berry for the uses of commerce. This 
change in the sugar production has been already 
introduced elsewhere to some extent, and during 
this year associations in Cuba have proposed it to 
the authorities of that island. It is feasible in itself, 
and, whenever made, will be one of the most signal 
blessings ever conferred upon mankind, by substi- 
tuting- for a method of cultivation which has been 
the scourge and scandal of the race, one which is 
consistent with morals and with happiness. 

If there is any relation of fitness between the re- 
sources and beauty of a country and the men who 
should inhabit it, Cuba belongs of right to the 
noblest races and the highest civilization. (See 
Appendix C.) It is here that nature has lavished 
her richest gifts. If any terrestrial paradise remains 
to fallen man, it is this island, whose pastures are 
decked in unfading green; whose forests are clothed 
with an eternal verdure; all whose seasons bloom 
with flowers; where succeeds forever to the lustrous 
night the fragrant morning; where the enjoyment 
of merely animal life is a conscious and exquisite 
pleasure; which unites the productions of the trop- 
ics and of the temperate zone; whose teeming soil 
bears cotton, indigo, coffee, sugar, and rice, at the 
same time with wheat and corn, while flocks and 
herds multiply upon its wide-spreading savannas; 
whose forests abound with every wood needed for 
the uses or tastes of man, the oak, the cedar, the 
pine, mahogany, brazil-wood, and the palm; whose 
luscious fruits defy enumeration ; whose coasts and 
rivers teem with the most delicious fish, while all 



285 

its groves are filled with birds ; and whose mineral 
riches, of coal, of copper, of sulphur, of gold, and 
of silver, vie with the profusion of its vegetable life. 
It is not wonderful that poets become extravagant, 
and the most prosaic of men poetical, when the 
theme is this elysium of the Western World. Even 
Humboldt, who had seen equatorial vegetation on 
the banks of the Orinoco, revived the animation of 
youth after the lapse of a generation, in describing 
the royal palms which adorn the vicinity of Havana 
and Kegla, the whole land bursting into flowers in 
early summer, and the "beauty of cultivated nature in 
' temperate climates, united with that majesty of the vcge- 
< table kingdom and that organic vigor which character- 
1 ize the torrid zone." 

Of the tropical and semi-tropical regions of the 
globe, it is true of a large portion, that repelling 
circumstances exist, not only in malaria, but in fero- 
cious beasts and deadly reptiles, or in those frightful 
convulsions of nature, the volcano, the earthquake, 
and the tornado, so fatal to the life and industry of 
man, and, to Northern imaginations, even more ter- 
rifying than fatal. From all these, Cuba, by a rare 
fortune, seems to enjoy a happy exemption. No 
earthquake has merited description since 1678. The 
hurricane is less frequent and less violent than in 
any of the West India Islands. No dangerous 
beast, and no single fatal reptile, is found upon it. 
Even the native bee is without a sting. 

It is ordinarily computed that Cuba may support 
a population often millions. It would contain two- 
thirds of that number with the density of population 
attained in Porto Rico: four times that number 



286 

with the density attained in Barbados. The esti- 
mates of its area vary from the equivalent of Ire- 
land, to nearly the equivalent of England and 
Wales. Our ideas on this continent and in this 
country are accustomed to spaces so vast, that we 
realize with difficulty the magnitude of the popula- 
tions which may be maintained upon small spaces, 
either by advanced civilization, or by the profusion 
of nature in the lower latitudes. The future may 
witness both in combination in this island, and 
human development will then have culminated. 

Is it possible, then, that Cuba is to be transferred 
from the dominion of a monarchy to the embrace 
of a republic, for the avowed object of perpetuating 
within it a system of slavery which now totters to 
its fall? And if such a crime against the rights and 
hopes of mankind is meditated, will its consumma- 
tion be permitted ? If Cuba is annexed to the United 
States for no better purpose than to be degraded 
into a market for American slave-breeders, will 
either the w T ish or the power be wanting, in the 
moral sentiments and in the numbers of the civil- 
ized world, to baffle and defeat them? Of this 
America, discovered by the genius and enterprise 
of white men, is there to be no part where the sun 
shines and flowers bloom, which they shall be per- 
mitted to occupy ? Is this nightmare of the negro 
race to brood over us always and everywhere ? Are 
we, by no possibility, to escape the interminable 
progeny of Virginia? Are they to follow us, as 
rats do, even when we cross the seas ? 

The men in the United States who are looking to 
the Queen of the Antilles for the employment of 



287 

their slaves, however they may control the Govern- 
ment, cannot control the people of this country; and 
prudence dictates that they should seasonably con- 
sider whether they may not be defeated in Cuba as 
they have been in Kansas. The free States, who 
will pay the purchase-money of the island, may 
perhaps appropriate it, where it rightfully belongs, 
to their own use. The slave trade from the United 
States to Cuba is to-day free of all practical obsta- 
cles, our own laws prohibiting only the importation, 
not the exportation, of slaves; yet none are trans- 
ported thither, for the plain and sufficient reason, 
that they are worth less there than here. If the 
prices of slaves remain relatively as the} 7 now are in 
Cuba and the United States, the effect of their 
political connection would be to transfer slaves, not 
from the United States to Cuba, but from Cuba to 
the United States ; an operation precisely the reverse 
of that contemplated by the interests which dictated 
tlie Ostend Manifesto. The rise of slave prices 
in Quba beyond the standard in the United States, 
as the result of its incorporation into the Union, is, 
at best, an anticipation, and it is a most improbable 
one. If a new spring is expected to be given to 
industry in Cuba by the removal of Spanish restric- 
tions, the same change will open it to unfettered 
immigration from the Northern States and from the 
other side of the Atlantic. European laborers have 
driven the negro from the levees of New Orleans; 
why will they not drive him from the quays of 
Havana? Of the greater part of the soil of Cuba, 
the white race is actually in possession, and with a 
preponderance of numbers which is daily increasing. 



288 

Can it be expelled? Will not the sturdy Monteros 
receive reinforcements, larger and more rapidly than 
the rival African ? 

The people of the free States will not stultify 
themselves, by moving upon the worn-out lands of 
Virginia, while the Virginia owners of slaves take 
possession of new lands in Cuba, or elsewhere, to 
be worn out in their turn. The people of the free 
States will choose rather to occupy, themselves, the 
fresh and virgin soils, in Cuba, or wherever found, 
and thus leave slavery to die out in the midst of the 
sterility and desolation it has caused. 

It has been an easy thing for American diplomat- 
ists, without the knowledge of the country and with- 
out authority from it, to offer one hundred millions 
for Cuba, and even more enormous sums ; but not 
a dollar can be paid, until the whole matter has 
undergone the most searching discussion in Con- 
gress and before the people, until all the arrange- 
ments, which will tend to fix the future condition 
of the island, are subjected to a prying criticism, 
and until all its resources and advantages are made 
familiar objects of popular knowledge. And what 
else can be the result of that knowledge, but such 
a white emigration to Cuba as will overwhelm the 
negro race? If the security of one crop of corn 
against the frosts of autumn has carried the people 
of New England to Kansas, will not the three crops, 
which may be raised in a year, carry still greater 
numbers to Cuba? If it can be supposed to be pos- 
sible to carry a Northern population into exhausted 
Eastern Virginia, will it not move irresistibly to 
appropriate the virgin resources of Cuba ? 



289 

No Missouri river lies between us and that island, 
but a broad ocean, which cannot be blockaded, and 
which we are accustomed to navigate. The same 
ocean surrounds it, and no borderers can seize upon 
its government, or dictate its laws. 

The acquisition of Cuba cannot be consummated 
without a distinct development of the purposes which 
will dictate it. To vote down a proposition to ex- 
clude the further admission of slaves into it from 
any quarter, will be to declare that the island is in- 
tended for the owners of slaves, and not for the free 
laborers of this country, their joint occupation of it 
being impossible. Will the free laborers submit to 
an exclusion? "Will the free States, on whom will 
fall the burden of the purchase, submit to an exclu- 
sion ? If they are assessed one hundred millions of 
dollars for this acquisition, will not the precise pres- 
sure of that assessment upon each State, county, 
town, and individual, be computed ? Will no pas- 
sions be inflamed, when it is seen that such an 
assessment is imposed for the purpose of enriching 
the owners of negroes? Is it imagined that the free 
States, already exasperated, chafed, and sore, will 
submit with patience to this new infliction ? Fresh 
from a contest in Kansas, the issue of which has 
demonstrated the power of their overwhelming 
numbers, will they not be impelled by every motive, 
by pride, by passion, by duty, by interest, and by 
hope, to vindicate and enforce their right to Cuba? 

The obstacles in the way of removing slavery by 
a free immigration, are far less in Cuba than in any 
of the Southern States, having the same proportion 
of slaves. 

13 



290 

In Cuba, there ia none of that peculiar fanaticism 
on the subject of slavery, which pervades all classes 
in the Southern portion of this Union, and renders 
them apparently insensible to their most obvious 
interests. 

With the planters of Cuba, the question of slavery 
is a question of labor, and not of politics. They em- 
ploy slaves, only because, and only so far as, it is 
profitable to do so, and would be prompt to substi- 
tute any species of labor which promised greater 
advantages. There is no slave-breeding interest in 
Cuba. There is no interest there, which wishes to 
keep labor scarce and high, in order to profit by 
selling slaves. The planters of Cuba make their 
fortunes by selling sugar, not by selling slaves, and 
they would co-operate in a policy which increased 
the income of their agriculture, even if it diminished 
the nominal value of so much of their capital as is 
invested in the ownership of labor. The planters 
of Cuba have, at all times, favored free wmite immi- 
gration, and would welcome it from any quarter. 
The feasibility of substituting free labor for slave 
labor, where slave labor is now used, and the best 
methods of obtaining free labor, are discussed con- 
stantly by the press in Cuba, and in the public 
associations which represent and watch over its in- 
dustrial interests. There is no such negro-mania 
in Cuba as there is in this country. A negro slave 
is looked at from a common-sense point of view, 
as a means to an end. It is the production of crops, 
and not the system of labor by which it is effected, 
which is the dominant consideration with the 
planters of Cuba; and any change in their system 



291 

of labor, which promised greater efficiency and 
economy in production, would be readily embraced 
by them. With our own planters, it is altogether 
different. In politics, it is their negroes, and not 
their crops, which occupy their exclusive attention. 
The planters of Mississippi and Alabama seemed, a 
few years since, to be ready to destroy the Union, 
because slaves could not be carried into the mines 
of California; the object of carrying them there 
being such a calculated rise in their value, as would 
have put an end to cotton-raising in the United 
States. It will consume the period of a generation, 
if it is possible at all, to infect the planters of Cuba 
with a frenzy like this. 

The non-slaveholding whites in Cuba are equally 
unlike the same classes in the Southern States. 
Instead of attachment to a system, in the profits 
of which they do not participate, while it excludes 
them from employment and degrades them in social 
consideration, they view slavery with a jealousy and 
hatred which they do not affect to conceal. With 
anything like universal suffrage, the yeomanry of 
Cuba would vote the planters down. The author 
of the Notes of a Physician upon Cuba, a native of 
South Carolina, and with the peculiar social ideas 
of that State, declares that these non-slaveholding 
whites are more dangerous than the slaves, and 
that they must not be trusted with political power. 
They do undoubtedly constitute a political element 
of the first consequence; and when events make it 
.necessary to do so, the people of this country will 
inform themselves in reference to it with critical 
exactness. 



292 

National ideas and habits are not changed in a 
day, and it must take a long time to innoculate the 
Cubans with the prevailing notions of this country 
in respect to negroes. They have, now, little or 
none of that peculiar prejudice, which we denomi- 
nate the prejudice of color, and they are accustomed 
to the constant emancipation of slaves, by the vol- 
untary act of their masters, and under the regular 
operation of the laws. It will take a considerable 
term of training, under the republican institutions 
of America, to teach them that personal liberty is a 
misfortune, and that the rights of human nature are 
only glittering generalities. 

In habits and social ideas, the points of dissimilar- 
ity and repugnance between the Northern Stales and 
Cuba, are far less numerous and less irreconcilable, 
than between the Northern and Southern States; 
and in all social and political respects, emigrants 
from the free States would be better off in Cuba, 
than in any Southern State in which slavery is pre- 
dominant. They would encounter in Cuba none of 
that suspicion and hatred, which they are never able 
to escape at the South, except by making themselves 
objects of contempt. In such a State as Virginia, 
until free emigration sets in upon it with a volume 
large enough to enforce respect, Northern men must 
become supporters of slavery, or remain politically 
and socially proscribed. The newspapers and the 
demagogues are incessant in their vituperation of 
everything Northern, and it is to be presumed that 
the newspapers and the demagogues understand 
-what the predominant popular impulses about them 
are. Instead of this atmosphere of contumely and 



293 

ostracism, so repulsive to men of just pride, emi- 
grants from the free States would be received in 
Cuba, in the event of its incorporation into this 
Union, on a footing of friendship, and would occupy 
without prejudice whatever position their capacity 
and vigor entitled them to claim. 

The emigration to Cuba from the United States, 
whatever it might prove to be in the event of the 
acquisition of that island, greater or less, would, at 
any rate, proceed almost exclusively from the free 
States. The whites, who emigrate from the slave 
States, must go to new and unoccupied regions. 
The bulk of them do not possess the arts, or skill, 
or habits of industry, which would enable them to 
get a foothold in Cuba, where the density of popu- 
lation already equals that of the old slave States. 
It is in the free States only that the men are- to be 
found, to whom Cuba affords a field for successful 
industry and enterprise. 

It is because the destiny of the system of slavery 
in the United States depends so entirely upon the 
possibility of giving it an expansion beyond the 
limits of the United States, that it has been consid- 
ered pertinent to discuss the probabilities of its ex- 
tension to the island of Cuba. It is in that direction 
that its extension is really most feasible, and it is 
there that resistance, if resistance is practicable, 
should be most vigilant. Nor can Cuba be regarded 
as foreign to the United States, if, as is the opinion 
of many, its incorporation into our Republic is a 
predestined event, and especially when the actual 
administration of this country was brought into 
power with an express view to its acquisition. 



- - 

r been distinguished by the 
of i of the 1 

■ " _ - "; by 

_ but in the opii. 

kind. This other Hi 

nal lin- . :; ?an labor: and if the time 

rr field can be found for the 
rue that men of the 
• labor in that islar. 

quarrel with it, 
legii - I 
from it E -ing and ol 

rion which 
;. an 



APPENDIX 



A. page 

THE REASONS ASSIGNED FOB ANNEXING 7ZXAS. 

The elaborate and vigorous letter of Bos writ- 

sop] art :f the 

::s of that 

- - attered ;~:r the whole : i in 

the hands of c" '.-.:. D exercised a most 

manifest and decisive influence fortarnes of the poG 

contest then brought to an ; pointment 

-. "talker to a commandirc 

& of hiss 
Thif letteac of Mr. Walker, being thus 
• 

hat manner he presented : 
upon the tra - 

-Bv the re-annexation of Texts y ear from Dela- 

te ten years, and Maryland in *. 
' diminished in \ .::& Kentucky. It is 

..need in Texas, it would recede from the States border! \ 
'the free States ::" the North I thus "1 be 

from actual coot 
from all influx fron: those States : 
■ augmenting fr N - -- • 

ro-aanexation, as the number ;:' 3 _mented in 

i - ling & 

ad Central I S ithern fen nine- 



200 

( tenths of their present population are already of the colored races, 
' and where, from their vast preponderance in number, they are not 
1 a degraded caste, but apon a footing, uol merelj of legal, but, what 
' is far more important, of actual equality, with I the popu- 

1 lation. Here, then, if Texas is re-annexed, throughout the vast 
4 region and salubrious and delicious climate of Mexico, and of Cen- 
' tral and Southern America, a large and rapidly-increasing portion 
' of the African race will disappear from the limits of the Union. 
' There, is a congenial climate for the African race. There, cold and 
1 want and hunger will not drive the African, as we see it does in the 
1 North, into the poor-house and the jail, and the asylums of the 
' idiot and insane. There, the boundless and almost unpeopled 
' territory of Mexico, and of Central and Southern America, with its 
( delicious climate, and most prolific soil, renders most eagy the 
'means of subsistence ; and there, they would not be a degraded 
' caste, but equals among equals, not only by law, but by feeling and 
' association. Beyond the Del Norte, Blavery will not pass, nol only 
' because it is forbidden by law, but because the colored race there 
1 preponderate in the ratio of ten to one over the whites ; and hold- 
' ing, as they do, the Government and most of the offices in their 
' possession, they will never permit the enslavement of any portion 
' of the colored race, which makes and executes the laws of the 
' country." 

Every advocate of annexation, from the North and the South, in 
the Congress by which the measure was consummated, who discussed 
it in its relation to slavery, urged news identical with those of Mr. 
Walker, as the published debates attest. The annexed extracts may 
be read as specimens of the whole. 

In Senate, June 8, 1854, (App. Cong. Globe, 1st Session, 28th 
Congress, page 720,) the treaty annexing Texas being under debate, 
Hon. James BUCHANAN, of Pennsylvania, said: "May not, then, the 
' acquisition of Texas be the means of drawing the slaves FAR TO 
' THE SOUTH, to a climate more congenial to their nature; and 
' may they not finally pass off into Mexico, and there mingle with 
' a race where no prejudice exists against their color? That the 
' acquisition of Texas would ere long convert Maryland. Virginia, 
' Kentucky, Missouri, and probably others of the more northern slave 
« States, into free States, I ENTERTAIN NOT A DOUBT. From the 
' very best information, it is no longer profitable to raise wheat, rye, 
' and corn, by slave labor. The slave will naturally be removed from 
: such a country, where his labor is scarcely adequate to his support, 



: 297 

4 to a region -where he can not only maintain himself, hut yield a 
' large profit to his master. Texas will open such an outlet ; and 
' slavery itself may thus FINALLY PASS THJ1 DEL NORTE, AND 
' BE LOST IN MEXICO." 

In Senate, June 3, 1854, (App. Cong. Globe, 1st Session, 28th Con- 
gress, page 537,) Mr. Breese, of Illinois, advocating the annexation 
of Texas, said : " Others object, sir, that its acquisition Avould encour- 
4 age the extension of slavery, and promote its increase. I think the 
4 contrary. I believe it would be the means of relieving many of the 
' old slave States, and some of the new ones, of this system. Through 
4 that avenue, in the course of God's Providence, and by the noise- 
4 less and increasing operation of such causes as He has set in 
4 motion, the whole black race will, at His own appointed time, find 
4 a refuge among a kindred population, inhabiting the southern por- 
4 tion of this continent, where they may realize such liberty as they 
4 may be capable of appreciating. Slavery will not be increased by 
4 this measure, but powerful means will be put in operation by it, 
• tending to its total extinction in the progress of time. 7 ' 

In the House, January 25, 1845, (App. Cong. Globe, 2d Session, 28th 
Congress, page 154,) Mr. Norris, of New Hampshire, said : " The cot- 
4 ton, sugar, and rice lands along the Gulf of Mexico, embrace almost 
4 the whole extent upon which such labor (slave) can be profitably 
4 employed. The march of the institution has been gradually south- 
4 ward. The present condition of the northern slave States affords 
4 proof of this, which cannot be mistaken. Even Missouri, where 
4 slavery has had a mushroom growth, is already stooping under a 
4 burden so onerous to her ultimate prosperity, and must, ere long, cast 
4 it from her shoulders. What effect will annexation produce upon this 
4 institution in Delaware, Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, 
4 and even Tennessee ? It will remove the institution further south, 
4 and to a climate more congenial to the negro race. It transfers 
4 them to a region where an assimilation of complexion and habits, 
4 brought about by the operation of a tropical climate, wiping out 
4 the odious distinction of color, is calculated finally to blend tho 
4 races, and EXTINGUISH THE INSTITUTION." 

In Senate, February 22, 1845, (App. Cong. Globe, 2d Session, 28th 
Congress, page 321,) Hon. Daniel S. Dickinson, of New York, said: 
"The admission of Texas to the Union would doubtless increase 
4 the number of slaves there, but would take them from the northerly 
4 slave States, until it would virtually abolish itself iD those States, 
4 as it had already done in Delaware ; and the slave would find a 



298 

1 climate more congenial to his nature in a more southern latitude. 
' And should he ever regain his freedom, he would see, upon his 
1 southern border, a*Hark race of men, who would hail him as a 
1 brother, and extend to him the hand of social and political equality, 
1 which would never be done here.'' 

In Senate, February 22, 1845, (App. Cong. Globe, 2d Session, 28th 
Congress, page 283,) Mr. Ashley, of Arkansas, said: "It (the annex- 
1 ation of Texas) opened an outlet for the colored population ; it 
1 suffered them gradually to transfer themselves into a region STILL 
' FURTHER SOUTH, where their color is not attended with the same 
' degrading associations. Here was an opening by which the South 
< might eventually GET RID OF AX INTOLERABLE BURDEN." 

In the House. May 7, 1844, (App. Cong. Globe, 1st Session, 28th Con- 
gress, page 444.) Mr. Tibbetts, of Kentucky, said : u It (the annexa- 
1 tion of Texas) will be favorable to the gradual, peaceful, and con- 
1 stitutional, abolition of slavery on this continent. They (the slaves) 
1 will gradually RECEDE PROM THE NORTH, which is uncongenial 
1 to their natures. They will be pushed and crowded on by the tide 
' of emigration of the white races of Europe, now flooding this coun- 
! try in search of liberty, and seeking freedom from the oppressions 
1 of the old "World. They will flow peacefully in an increasing stream 
1 along the Mississippi, the great father of waters, and through this 
' very land of Texas, until they end their pilgrimage on the shores 
' of the Gulf, and in a climate congenial to their nature, and become 
' blended with the mixed population of Mexico." 

"We have here, in various forms of expressions, two opinion: 

1. That it was both desirable and practicable to remove slavery 
from the tier of farming slave States, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, 
Missouri, and perhaps Tennessee. 

2. That while slavery could not pass the Rio Grande, the negro 
race might and would pass it, and recover both a legal and social 
equality among the colored races of Mexico and Central America. 

This discussion was in 1844-'5. Ten years afterwards, the same 
men were found endeavoring to plant slavery in Kansas, in the lati- 
tude of Missouri, and for the avowed purpose of propping up slavery 
in Missouri and in the tier of farming slave States ; and at this 
moment, no citizen of Missouri can advocate the removal of slavery 
from that State without being denounced by them as an enemy of 
the country. 

These same men are also engaged in attempts, not to realize the 
benevolent scheme of conducting the negro to liberty and equality 



299 

among the colored races beyond the Rio Grande, but to plant slavery 
in Central America by force of arms, and to obtain successive por- 
tions of Mexico for the same purpose, by purchase and by private 



B, page 64. 

MARYLAND. 

On the 26th of February, 1850, the Legislature of Maryland adopted 
unanimously a series of resolutions, of which the following was one : 

"Resolved, unanimously, That the State of Maryland was, at the time 
« of the adoption of the Federal Constitution, and is now, in feeling, 
1 and in all the features of her constitution and laws, essentially, fully, 
1 and unequivocally, a slaveholding State." 

Notwithstanding the unanimity of this protestation, Maryland is 
distrusted by her Southern neighbors. 

The following paragraph appeared this year in the Norfolk (Va.) 
Argus: 

" Maryland, by position and interest, is not entitled to be classed 
« among the slave States. Her politics show that her press is fast 
' bringing about a fraternization between her and the free States, so 
« called. On each side of the Bay, her people are sound; but north 
« and west of Baltimore, there is but a shade of difference between 

< the inhabitants of Maryland and Pennsylvania. It is through Mary- 
' land that most of the slaves now escape from Virginia. Her laws 

< on this subject are wholly ineffectual, and public opinion will not 
1 tolerate one that is worth a straw." 



C, page 284. 

RESOURCES OF CUBA. 

The extracts annexed are from the '-Cuba and the Cubans" of Mr. 
Kimball : 

"I had intended before this to allude to the climate and atmosphere 
1 of this enchanting island. The exquisite freshness of the morning, 
' the soft, cool, breeze of the evening, produce a sensation to be en- 
< joyed only, but never to be described to those living in the forbid- 
1 ding North. 



>y 



